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304800249766 Einar Braathen J?rn Holm-HansenReview of Norwegian democracy support via political partiesFinal ReportCommissioned by Norad (2014)Table of Contents TOC \o "1-2" \t "Overskrift 3;2;Overskrift 4;4;Utennr;4;Forord;Vedlegg;5;Littlist;3" Tables PAGEREF _Toc401330347 \h 5Executive Summary PAGEREF _Toc401330348 \h 61Introduction PAGEREF _Toc401330349 \h 101.1On democracy support via political parties PAGEREF _Toc401330350 \h 101.2On democracy support via Norwegian political parties PAGEREF _Toc401330351 \h 101.3Aims of the review PAGEREF _Toc401330352 \h 111.4The review approach PAGEREF _Toc401330353 \h 121.5Methods applied for the review PAGEREF _Toc401330354 \h 132The projects 2011-14 and their results PAGEREF _Toc401330355 \h 142.1The Norwegian political parties and their projects PAGEREF _Toc401330356 \h 142.1.1Arbeiderpartiet (Norwegian Labour Party) PAGEREF _Toc401330357 \h 152.1.2AUF (Labour Youth/The Workers’ Youth League) PAGEREF _Toc401330358 \h 172.1.3H?yre (Conservative Party) PAGEREF _Toc401330359 \h 182.1.4The Christian Democrats (KrF Norway) PAGEREF _Toc401330360 \h 202.1.5Young Christian Democrats (KrFU) PAGEREF _Toc401330361 \h 222.1.6Senterpartiet (The Centre Party) PAGEREF _Toc401330362 \h 242.1.7Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party) PAGEREF _Toc401330363 \h 262.1.8Venstre (Liberal Party) PAGEREF _Toc401330364 \h 282.2Joint assessment of the projects PAGEREF _Toc401330365 \h 282.2.1Norwegian parties’ knowledge of the country contexts PAGEREF _Toc401330366 \h 292.2.2Capability to strengthen competence within partner organizations PAGEREF _Toc401330367 \h 302.2.3Capability to embed the projects within the organizations PAGEREF _Toc401330368 \h 302.2.4Sustainability and cost efficiency of the projects PAGEREF _Toc401330369 \h 312.2.5Contribution to democratic party organizations PAGEREF _Toc401330370 \h 312.2.6The developmental-managerial capacity of the Norwegian parties PAGEREF _Toc401330371 \h 333Arrangements of democracy support PAGEREF _Toc401330372 \h 353.1Assessment of the Norad-administered arrangement for political parties PAGEREF _Toc401330373 \h 353.1.1The purpose and design of the arrangement (the Guidelines) PAGEREF _Toc401330374 \h 353.1.2Norad’s technical and administrative handling of the arrangement: PAGEREF _Toc401330375 \h 353.2What has changed since NDS was closed down? PAGEREF _Toc401330376 \h 363.2.1The basic project approach of the Norwegian parties PAGEREF _Toc401330377 \h 373.2.2Partner choice and partner relationships PAGEREF _Toc401330378 \h 383.2.3Project design PAGEREF _Toc401330379 \h 383.2.4Lasting effects? PAGEREF _Toc401330380 \h 393.3Experiences internationally PAGEREF _Toc401330381 \h 393.3.1A brief overview of the current academic and professional debate PAGEREF _Toc401330382 \h 403.3.2The Netherlands - NIMD PAGEREF _Toc401330383 \h 423.3.3Sweden – PAOs PAGEREF _Toc401330384 \h 433.3.4Finland - Demo PAGEREF _Toc401330385 \h 453.3.5Denmark - DIPD PAGEREF _Toc401330386 \h 453.3.6International experiences relevant for Norway PAGEREF _Toc401330387 \h 463.4Other forms of Norwegian democracy support PAGEREF _Toc401330388 \h 473.5Three scenarios for the future arrangement PAGEREF _Toc401330389 \h 483.5.1Discontinuation PAGEREF _Toc401330390 \h 483.5.2Continuation PAGEREF _Toc401330391 \h 493.5.3Redesign PAGEREF _Toc401330392 \h 504Conclusions and recommendations PAGEREF _Toc401330393 \h 534.1The projects PAGEREF _Toc401330394 \h 534.2The arrangement PAGEREF _Toc401330395 \h 544.3Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc401330396 \h 56References and documents consulted PAGEREF _Toc401330397 \h 59Appendix 1Interview guide PAGEREF _Toc401330398 \h 61Appendix 2List of interviews PAGEREF _Toc401330399 \h 66Tables TOC \c "Tabell" Table 2.1Norwegian democracy support via political parties, 2013 PAGEREF _Toc401329826 \h 14Table 3.1Swedish democracy support via party-affiliated organisations (PAOs), 2013 PAGEREF _Toc401329827 \h 44Table 3.2Size and forms of democracy support via political parties, five donor countries PAGEREF _Toc401329828 \h 46Executive SummaryThe Norwegian scheme for democracy support through the political parties aims to contribute to democratic and well-functioning party organizations in developing countries. After having been administered by the parties themselves through a centre for democracy support since 2002 the scheme came under the Norwegian agency for development support – Norad – in 2011. The present Review takes stock of the operation and results of the current scheme and provides a set of recommendations for its future. The scheme is small. Only around eight million Norwegian kroner have been allocated annually. Still parts of the annual sum remain unused every year because project proposals do not pass the quality control carried out by the Norwegian agency for development cooperation. Prior to 2011 the parties submitted their project applications to the centre for democracy support and a board of party representatives had the decision-making authority. Under the current scheme the proposals are being handled by Norad, a professional body independent of political parties. This Review found that the new arrangement has strengthened quality control. Although Norad is not traditionally familiar with the purely political sides of party life, its assessments of the project proposals are strict and point at obvious flaws when it comes to the parties’ basic grasp of contextual factors and project design. Getting a project proposal approved is more challenging for the Norwegian parties than before, This has been used as learning exercises to improve projects. Also the requirements for reporting have been stricter and consequently the reports produced by the parties have become more concerned with results since the 2011 re-foundation of the scheme. Democracy promotion through the parties naturally concentrate on political aspects of democratisation. This makes it different from other elements of Norwegian democracy promotion that mainly is channelled through civil society organizations. The Norwegian parties have chosen different management models for their projects. Some of them have a project leader who is employed in the party HQ, others have qualified project managers external to the parties. On project level the Norwegian activities are very similar to those of other European parties involved in democracy promotion. Compared to other like-minded European countries’ arrangements, however, the Norwegian scheme stands out as being the only arrangement in which the parties themselves manage the projects in direct interaction with the agency for development assistance. This means that Norwegian parties cannot lean on external competence in the field of political democracy promotion. This is problematic as the Norwegian parties carry out knowledge-intensive projects in a wide variety of countries with very different levels of political development.Most of the projects are party-to-party, but two projects involve most of the important parties in the partner country. The methods applied vary from project to project, the preferred tool nonetheless being training workshops in which the Norwegian parties present their own routines for gender empowerment, electoral campaigns or internal debates. There are also elements of technical upgrading of the parties, like for instance introducing an electronic membership register as a part of the project.In general the projects have ambitious goals. Nonetheless it is possible to point at outcomes in the OECD/DAC sense of likely vs achieved short-term and medium-term effects of the intervention’s deliverables. Given the short time that has evolved since the initiation of the projects most of them belong to the category of likely effects, though. Nonetheless, under the current scheme the projects have produced a higher number of documented and immediate outcomes than under the previous scheme. The Review found that training has helped individual participants (women, young people) to become a nominated candidate or even elected. Organizational development has led to new and more adequate intra-party practices and new facilities for member activities have been established. Moreover, inter-party dialogues have led to less conflict among party representatives. The outcomes are relevant for the achievement of the overall project goal, but it is still too early to conclude that they result in lasting “well-functioning and democratic” party organizations.In monetary terms, the projects are not cost efficient. This is because the scheme is small which makes Norad spend disproportionally much efforts on handling project proposals and reports. In addition, the parties spend many resources on basic activities that would have be done irrespective of the size of the projects. On the other hand, the individual parties involved contribute through non-paid, voluntary work and also by freeing HQ staff for facilitating and lecturing at trainings seminars. As of now, the Norwegian parties base themselves on acceptable knowledge to carry out projects but in order to be aware of the potential risks surrounding the project, and also opportunities, a more in-depth knowledge is needed than most of the parties possess today. So, in order to increase the likelihood of project outcomes project leaders need critical knowledge not only about the project country in general, but also political culture, practices and power relations surrounding and penetrating the partner organizations.The projects are embedded in the parties to a varying degree. Much is pending on the project leader, in particular in the period between submittal of the project proposal and its start-up. It seems that linking party supports with the Information-from-the Global South programme and the Norwegian Peace Corps creates synergies that help the democracy support project take hold among a wider number of party activists and professionals. The Review sums up several other improvements in the current arrangement compared to the arrangement prior to 2011. Therefore, it is recommended that the Norwegian democracy support via political parties is continued. The future scheme can build on the favourable facts that there is a broad agreement between Norwegian parties to commit themselves to democracy support and to cooperate better to improve the quality of the assistance to political parties. The Review recommends redesign and scaling up of an arrangement that should rest on the three pillars of Norad, an independent resource centre, and an advisory council. To sum up the recommendations:Norad and the political parties should agree on a revised formulation of the purpose of the arrangement.Democracy support is a knowledge-intensive activity. A resource centre should be established to provide a forum for contact and exchange of experiences between actors involved in Norwegian democracy support, and to oversee capacity building in results-based management among the Norwegian project leaders.Norad should continue to be the funding body to which the recipient political parties are held accountable, as long as Norad and the political parties find this arrangement.to be adequate. An advisory council should be established to interact with the resource centre. The council could consist of the secretaries-general and/or relevant persons with insight in the field of democracy cooperation, appointed by the secretaries-general.The total annual amount allocated to the arrangement should be increased substantially to benefit from a certain economy of scale.A more flexible and differentiated scope of demands should be put on these different types of grants: (i) basic grants; (ii) party-to-party project grants; (iii) multi-party projects grants A future scheme for democracy support through parties must strengthen the ‘critical knowledge’ about the country contexts of the projects, among others through ‘country risk assessments’. Clustering projects according to thematic contents is a way to structure learning and exchange of experience. This could for instance be done by operating with four project clusters: (i) parties in “EU’s waiting room”; (ii) former liberation movements; (iii) new parties in authoritarian and post-authoritarian countries; (iv) parties that used to be constituent parties of authoritarian regimes but later have entered into a process of democratization. The suggested resource centre should organize annual training courses e.g. in PMR (planning-monitoring-reporting of outcomes/results) in conjunction with Norad and the Ministry of Foreign AffairsThe projects should concentrate on a limited number of countries. Multi-party projects could be planned, implemented and monitored with the assistance of foreign institutes such as NIMD (Netherland) and DIPD (Denmark). The Norwegian parties should be encouraged to design partnerships with different funding arrangements – e.g. Norad’s support to information activities and Fredskorpset’s program for exchange of organization staff, in addition to the democracy support scheme. This would create positive synergiesIn order to embed the projects more deeply in the party organizations, both the secretary-general and international secretary of the partner organization should be involved in the project planning process. Introduction On democracy support via political parties Democracy promotion has gained in importance within development aid since the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent waves of democratisation in most parts of the world. Focus has been on three main areas: (i) support to civil society organizations and enhanced popular participation in public life; (ii) public education and constitutional reforms regarding citizenship, rights and rule-of- law; and (iii) institution-building related to representative and accountable government. In the latter area the political parties play a major role. Much effort has been invested in the introduction of multi-party systems and transparent elections. Gradually, the role of the parties themselves as actors and building blocks for democracy has been acknowledged. Channelling parts of democracy support systematically to political parties in the South and East is relatively new, and the specific methodology needed for party support is in a process of being established. The main mode of operation in the Norwegian democracy support seems to be a variant of twinning between like-minded parties in Norway and the cooperation country. The basic assumption is that a Norwegian party has organizational know-how which can be transferred to a party in the South through cooperation in quite small projects. However, the 2010 evaluation pointed out that this is only one among several modes of cooperation to strengthen political parties in the South (and in the East). On democracy support via Norwegian political partiesThe purpose of Norwegian democracy support via political parties is to contribute to “democratic and well-functioning party organizations in developing countries”. The size of the program is small and the scope is limited. Annually NOK 8 million has been allocated to the program. In 2013 the program spent NOK 6.5 million and involved 9 projects in seven countries. Five Norwegian political parties and two party youth organizations have received project support in the period 2011-2013. In addition to projects in typical developing countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and South Sudan, there are projects in Europe or regions close to Europe such as the Balkans and a post-Soviet country. Some of the countries are strongly politicized and have vibrant civil societies, such as South Africa and El Salvador. Egypt and Bosnia are, in different ways, marked by political instability. The projects face the common challenge that democracy support is a knowledge-intensive activity. From 2002 the democracy support was administered by the parties themselves through a joint foundation, Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support (NSD). The centre was closed down in 2009. An evaluation carried out by NIBR (Norad Report, 2010) pointed out several weaknesses in NSD’s operations, but it recommended a continuation of the program albeit in a strongly reformed way. From 2011 on, Norad has administered the arrangement of democracy support via political parties. In its revised state budget for 2014, the new coalition government of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party suggested to discontinue the arrangement. However, a majority in the Parliament decided to maintain the arrangement for at least one more year (Stortinget, 2013) but under another budget item. The arrangement is now part of the foreign policy for ‘Peace, reconciliation and democracy’. At the same time the Parliament recommended a review of the arrangement before making a decision on its further destiny. After a competitive tender Norad assigned the task to the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR). The aim of the review is to provide technical inputs to the discussion about the democracy support arrangement.Aims of the review The main aim of the review is to provide technical inputs to the public discussion of the Norwegian democracy support arrangement. The arrangement level: The review assesses the extent to which the democracy support arrangement contributes to ?democratic and well-functioning party organizations in developing countries? in an effective manner. The review also assesses the purpose and design of the arrangementassesses Norad’s technical and administrative handling of the arrangementassesses the arrangement against alternative ways of organizing democracy support to political parties in the global south, with reference to party assistance from other donor countries and eventually in the light of other forms of Norwegian democracy support. The Project level: The review considers which results that can be documented at the project level, through an assessment of: the knowledge of the Norwegian parties about the conditions in the project countries, in which way they strengthen the competence within the partner organizations in which way the democracy projects are embedded in the party organizations and their partnersthe sustainability and cost efficiency of the projectsBased on these assessments the report gives concrete recommendations and discusses different alternatives for a continuation of the democracy support:discontinuation of the arrangement (and its consequences)continuation of the current arrangement redesign of the arrangement (including the supportive measures that have to be in place)The review approachThe review primarily looks at the period from 2011 to the present. The evaluation report of the Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support (Norad 2010) forms the baseline/point of departure for this review. The review contains a comparison of the situation reported in the 2010 report with the current situation. The comparison covers the changes both in the democracy support arrangement and at the project-/ recipient level. Moreover, the review asks to what extent the recommendations of the 2010 evaluation have been followed. What are the new experiences? Have new challenges emerged since 2010? All the seven parties/youth organizations and the 11 projects has been equally addressed. Henceforth no in-depth case was chosen. With only 11 projects this was not necessary. On the other hand, 11 projects were sufficient to observe patterns and eventual outcomes of different ways of carrying out projects. In order to structure the reading of documents, the interviews and the analysis have made use of program theory. That means to constantly ask how the concrete efforts are thought to achieve the defined goals. These ‘programs’ have been compared with the documented results of the activities. This was useful to assess the purpose and design of the arrangement, but is also be part of the discussion of Norad’s technical and administrative handling of the arrangement. In the review of each of the 11 projects we employed the case study methodology, where project activities were analyzed in their concrete context. We emphasized the knowledge basis that the parties acquired before they design their projects. In this manner it was possible to assess the Norwegian parties’ insights into the countries of operation, and also the ways in which they strengthen the competence among their partners. The report sticks to the approach and vocabulary of OECD/DAC (2002). Among others this means that it is possible to point at outcomes in the sense of likely vs achieved short-term and medium-term effects of the intervention’s deliverables. Given the short time that has evolved since the initiation of the projects most of them belong to the category of likely effects. The term outcome refers to an immediate effect/result produced by the focused action/actor/organization. The term impact refers to more long term effects/results on the organization or its environment (or society). Methods applied for the reviewThe review started out with studies of the following documents:Main reference documents: Norad 2010, Norad 2011, Stortinget 2013 and other documents Recipient Norwegian Party (RNP) document: applications/project proposals, annual progress reports, annual plans and final project reports.Norad’s technical assessments of applications and RNP reports, and the resulting Decision Document (‘Beslutningsdokument’).In addition to document studies, interviews are the most important source of data for the review. Organized as in-depth interviews with a set of questions fetched from an interview guide (check list to assure that the important themes are addressed in the interview), it was possible for the interviewed persons to raise additional issues. Different interview guides (see Appendix I) have been elaborated for various types of interviews/groups of interviewees:face-to-face interviews with representatives of Norad face-to-face interviews with secretaries-general, international secretaries and project coordinators in the Norwegian parties/organizations; telephone and skype interviews with local partners and embassies; A third important source of data is the international academic literature about democracy support. The mixed experiences of the “colour revolutions” (orange etc) in former Soviet republics have influenced the literature. We have reviewed the literature and new discussions that emerged in the 2010-2014 period. We ask to which extent the international debate is reflected in the Norwegian arrangement and discuss how this debate eventually could contribute to strengthening and improving the democracy support via political parties. In addition the reviewers have consulted, by means of email and telephone communication, the main European actors which where visited as part of the 2010 evaluation. The purpose was to be updated about changes in their approaches and new experiences. Regarding effects (whether outcomes or impacts), these have been difficult to ascertain since the review had to be carried out without field visits. The review has also in this area been based on a combination of written reports from the parties, interview statements and the reviewers’ own assessments of likely effects. The projects 2011-14 and their resultsThe Norwegian political parties and their projects Table 2. SEQ Tabell\* Arabic\s 1 \* MERGEFORMAT 1Norwegian democracy support via political parties, 2013Norwegian partyCOUNTRYProject and partnerReceived 2013 (NOK)ArbeiderpartietSouth SudanCooperation project between SPLM and the Norwegian Labour Party 1?324 000EgyptCooperation project between ESDP and the Norwegian Labour Party 610 000South AfricaCooperation project between ANC and the Norwegian Labour Party (cancelled) 438?000AUF - Arbeidernes UngdomsfylkingLebanonTraining for trainers PYO (Progressive Youth Organisation) 560 000H?yreBosnia-HercegovinaWomen’s empowerment in Bosnia Herzegovina (completed in 2013) 600 000The Christian Democrats (KrF Norway)Post-Soviet countryCooperation project Eastern Europe 1 091 000KenyaStrengthening the administration of political parties in KenyaYoung Christian Democrats – KrFU)Post-SovietcountryCooperation project Eastern Europe 495 000KenyaEnhancing the role of youth in political parties in KenyaSenterpartiet v/SpS Tanzania“Elimu no demokrasia” - Learning/knowledge and democracy 825 000Sosialistisk VenstrepartiEl SalvadorStrengthening of members’ participation in the FMLN and support to El Salvador’s democracy 635?000Total 6?577 000 - Arbeiderpartiet (Norwegian Labour Party)A. Background. About the country contexts and partnersArbeiderpartiet has long historical relationships with ANC in South Africa and SPLM in South Sudan, established already while these movements were in armed struggle against the regime in their country. The relationships have been more official and formal after the introduction of democratic elections that made these former liberation movements ruling parties. Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) has always had close links with Arbeiderpartiet. NPA has been instrumental in building and maintaining the relationship between Arbeiderpartiet and its partners, particularly in South Sudan, and Arbeiderpartiet can in its party-to-party cooperation projects draw on NPA’s knowledge of country contexts and practical resources accumulated through aid activities in these parts of the world. Since a peace agreement was signed with Sudan’s government in 2005, SPLM has been the ruling and dominant political organization in South Sudan. After a referendum in January 2011 the country achieved full independence. Arbeiderpartiet’s democracy support project with SPLM took place from April 2011 to December 2013. During the last year of the project period the SPLM leadership became increasingly divided, resulting in a civil war like situation with ethnic dimensions from December 2013. By mid-2014 cease-fire has been consolidated and peace talks have begun. The secretariat of SPLM has not been part of the warring factions and remains a vital intermediating force in the country. AP and the SPLM secretariat have made a joint proposal for further project collaboration, ready for implementation when the political situation has been stabilized. Unlike South Sudan Arbeiderpartiet’s activities in Egypt are of a new date. The Egyptian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) was founded in March 2011, during the Arab Spring. AP regards ESDP as a promising and interesting partner. Given Egypt’s strategic importance in the Middle East, Arbeiderpartiet’s International Committee took initiatives to formalize contacts. The two-year democracy support project started in January 2013. The democratic development in Egypt have seen several setbacks, with an autocratic yet elected president being ousted by the military forces in June 2013. The Parliament, where ESDP had 23 seats, was dissolved. The new elected president, general Sisi, has promised parliament elections to take place. They are expected to be held early 2015. B. Program TheoryThe project in Egypt addresses the fact that women’s participation in politics is low, and rising (Islamic) conservatism could undermine women’s ability and motivation to participate. Making some women more visible in politics can inspire more women to follow suit. The goal of the project is to engage more women to participate by building confident female role models. Women trained in the project would create a trickle-down effect by bringing their knowledge back to their local party branches and pass on knowledge. The project in South Sudan was less clear in its stated goals. It addressed the typical challenge of changing the hierarchical command structure of an armed movement into the participatory, democratic structures of a political party. The project aimed at carrying out certain activities and starting the long term process of transforming the organization. The idea was to develop a trustful peer-to-peer relation to address sensitive problems of the organization.C. Project design and operationsIn Egypt Arbeiderpartiet applied the Women Can Do It (WDCI) programme, in which Arbeiderpartiet has 25 years of national and international experience. The WDCI is a Training-of-Trainers (ToT) program. Three workshops in three different regions were to be held for 5 days and with 30 participants each.In South Sudan the project was to organize round-table discussions, policy debates and the production of policy documents on important political areas. It would also strengthen the party headquarter by defining its role, strengthen its basic functions and create a strategy for a campaign. Visit of HQ staff to Norway was part of those efforts. E. Documented resultsIn Egypt, the project has been instrumental in increasing the share of women on the ballot lists of the party prepared for the coming elections (2014/2015). Many of the women standing as candidates to local and national assemblies participated in the WDCI workshops. There are also sign, although difficult to document, that conservative or conventional attitudes among male leaders within the party towards female participation in politics have been opposed and/or changed. The crisis in SPLM since March 2013 has put many planned project activities on ice and made it difficult to record any results. Nevertheless, the Roundtable discussion held in January 2013 was the first time after the last convention of SPLM in 2008 that all the central leaders met with the local leaders (governors). They were openly challenged for lack of government results. F. Lessons learntThe project in South Africa with ANC never took off because the responsible person in the international department of the Women’s League moved out. The project was not deeply enough embedded in the ANC organization to survive personnel mobility. The projects in Egypt and South Sudan faced sudden political changes during their implementation, but Arbeiderpartiet managed to redesign and redraft the project plans and budget accordingly in good consultation with Norad. Arbeiderpartiet learnt that the goals in South Sudan should have been less ambitious and more achievable. AUF (Labour Youth/The Workers’ Youth League)A. Background. About the country contexts and partnersAUF has since the mid-1990s developed contacts with political youth organizations in the Middle East, mainly with Fateh Youth Movement (FYM). FYM is the youth organization of the largest political party in Palestine, Fatah. AUF decided to put the relationship on hold in 2008 because FYM did not organize a congress to elect new leadership, allegedly because of the problems with the Gaza Strip being under control of Hamas. However, FYM has recently elected a new leadership and AUF has included it in its democracy support project with Progressive Youth Organization (PYO) of Lebanon. PYO is the youth organization of the Progressive Socialist Party, a party based on the Druze community but is open for people from other religions as well, striving to transcend the borderlines of a religiously segmented country. AUF’s partnership with PYO for democracy development started in 2011. B. Program TheoryThe partners challenge three weaknesses in political organizations in this part of the world: first, the tradition of few female leaders; second, organizationally weak local branches; third, politically weak youth organizations in their relationships with parent parties. These aspects have been dealt with in a series of seminars and courses in Lebanon. Since January 2014, the project meets the additional need of systematic exchange of experiences between democratic youth organizations across Arab countries. This may lead to the strengthening of progressive, secular and democratic forces in the region. The perseverance of wars and armed conflicts in the region have increasing imprints on political work and campaigning – how to cope with this is also a challenge. C. Project design and (D.) operationsThe method of Training-of-Trainers (ToT) has been applied to strengthen local branches and female participation simultaneously. Annually, 160 members of PYO participated in courses. Since January 2014 the design has changed. The partnership now involves three types of joint activities for Lebanese, Palestinian and Norwegian: seminar on how to organize internal political processes and develop a party political platform; seminar to exchange experiences of how to organize political work in the context of armed conflicts; and Women-Can-Do-It courses. AUF members operate as facilitators and ‘comrades’ in these activities.E. Documented resultsPYO has become much stronger and is about to become completely independent from the mother party. The organization has decided that 30 per cent (before 20 cent) of the leaders at all levels have to be women. FYM’s delegation of 13 persons in the first joint seminar with PYO and AUF consisted of 10 women, and a majority of them took a joint initiative to collect blankets, shoes etc. for the Gaza population during the war in July 2014. F. Lessons learntContinuity is important in international democracy support, but continuity is a challenge in a youth organization. AUF copes with this by having a full time international secretary and a group of three among its central board members being jointly responsible for international work (non-paid volunteers). They are elected for two years at bi-annual congresses, but many of them keep being re-elected. In this way, AUF spends substantial parts of its own resources on international democracy support. H?yre (Conservative Party)A. Background. About the country context and partnerH?yre started out with projectsin Bosna and Indonesia. The Indonesia project with Golkar was discontinued in 2012 and the Bosnia project in 2013. As a result of the Dayton Agreement 1995 Bosnia-Hercegovina is divided into two self-governed entities, Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The latter entity is a federation of cantons that are either Bosniak (i.e. Muslim Southern Slavs) or Croat or Croat-Bosniak. Bosnia’s politics follow ethnic dividing lines. H?yre’s involvement started with the Party for Democratic Progress (PDP) in the Republika Srpska as partner. This is a moderately nationalist Conservative party in opposition. It was ready for project cooperation with Conservatives across the ethnic divide in Bosnia, i.e. with the Bosniak Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and the biggest parties among Croat voters in Bosna – Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH). SDA and HDZ BiH are both nationalist parties but SDA - being close to the International Community administering the country - has a relatively moderate profile. B. Program TheoryThe project aims at reaching objectives on two levels. At the basic level it aims at strengthening and democratising parties through strengthening the involvement and position of women in the parties. In addition, the project addresses one of Bosna’s core problems, which is the lack of willingness among central actors to bring ethnic groups together. The fact that H?yre’s project brings together one conservative party from each of the three constituent ethnicities of Bosnia for joint activities is significant in this perspective. Bosnian politics is very much dominated by conflict lines based on “clans” and ethnicity. Bringing political conflict lines based on values, ideology and coherent policy packages into Bosnian political life, therefore, contributes to the dissolving of the country’s political stalemate caused by the dominating ethnic conflict line. H?yre does not “provide” the ideology or policies but concentrate on the technical aspects of politics leaving it to the local counterparts to develop politics. C. Project design and (D.) operationsThe project consists of training in technical aspects of party work, like media strategy and electoral campaigning; debate technique, contact with voters. Trainers are staff and politicians from H?yre, like the information officer and regional secretaries, i.e. people who do this kind of work at a daily basis in Norway. The project has its roots in communication between H?yre and the European People’s Party and International Democrat Union. The current project design, however, has been initiated by H?yre’s Bosnian counterparts. Training women was considered a relatively uncontroversial starter. H?yre’s project leader is no more an employee at the party HQ, but used to be, which makes close communication with the HQ easy. The assistant of the party secretary-general is in charge of direct contact with Norad regarding budgets and reports to Norad. E. Documented resultsMany of the workshop participants have been elected into Bosnia’s elected organs, of which there are a lot due to the country’s intricate institutional set-up post-Dayton. It is, of course, impossible to attribute this solely to the project but the fact that participants have been elected indicated that the project has targeted a segment of women who will be in a position to apply the technical skills acquired through the workshops. In some cases, on their own initiative, participants have replicated the workshops at home to train local party colleagues. There are also stories that participants keep in touch via social media and meet each other while travelling in the country. F. Lessons learntH?yre finds it very useful to keep in close contact with the Norwegian embassies and has appreciated the practical guidance offered by Norad. Nonetheless, H?yre finds Norad to expect too much in terms of cooperation across Norwegian party lines. More energy is released among like-minded parties. H?yre finds the former NSD model to be ok in the sense that NSD had a certain apparatus which saved the Norwegian parties from spending too much time on administration. The current model is costly for H?yre. The party has to use much of its own resources and the reporting is time consuming whereas funds are small. H?yre’s staff gets time off from ordinary work to travel and conduct workshops. In addition a lot of work is being done without compensation. The project depends on enthusiasts. H?yre considers a critical mass of funding and activities to be needed and as of now the project is below the critical mass. Funds to allow one permanent staff would have helped a lot. H?yre has to consider withdrawing if more funds are not made available (or alternatively withdraw for a period to leave more funds for the other parties and then return and hope other parties take a couple of years off). The party envisages two possible models: a) broad approach in a few numbers of countries with several parties involved; b) link up with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung or Jarl Hjalmarsson-stiftelsen. Both models would secure predictability but significant increase in the funds would be needed. A four-year cycle of funding would have enabled more long-term planning in line with the parties’ own cycles. The Christian Democrats (KrF Norway) A. Background. About the country context and partnerIn a post-Soviet country The Christian Democrats (KrF Norway) cooperate with a sister party that also has close links to German CSU and Christian democrats in other East European countries. The Christian Democrats have a project with eleven political parties in Kenya in cooperation with the USAID-funded National Democratic Institute. The Christian Democrats try to link contents of training to ongoing processes in the parties. This is easier in the post-Soviet country where the Christian Democrats have only one partner, than in Kenya where they have no less than eleven partners. However, in Kenya the new Constitution opens up for linking the project to ongoing processes. How to follow up the provisions in the Constitution? Unlike the situation prior to the violence in 2007-8 when tribalism smoldered, tribalism today is being talked about and denounced. Now everyone says their party has to be distinguishable on policies not on tribes, but exactly what policies are still unclear. In order to break with tribalism, impulses from outside are needed. Party members need to sit down and discuss what values they base their politics on, patterns of policies, identify and give names to it. But these will not necessarily identical to the ideological packages from the North, The Christian Democrats claim. Differently from the Kenyan parties, the Christian Democrats partner in the post-Soviet country is eager to develop policies in line with its basic Christian democratic values.B. Program TheoryMaking use of the effect of eye-opening role models and “case studies” is a core feature in the Christian Democrats’ work with their counterpart. Showing, and not merely telling, is the Christian Democrats’ method. This means that target groups are exposed to the Christian Democrats’ (and Norwegian) practices. They are supposed to function as eye-opening role models that provoke discussion. An illustration of this method was given by the Christian Democrats’ process on abolishing ‘confession of faith’ as a requirement for membership. The Christian Democrats used this as an opportunity to show how processes on difficult and controversial issues can be carried out. Among others during the partners’ visit to the Christian Democrats’ congress this was in focus. The post-Soviet counterpart followed this real-life process real-time and with great interest. In the post-Soviet country there are few opportunities for political work. Nonetheless, there are political activists in the country eager to learn the skills needed to be ready when democracy is introduced. A lesson from the Arab Spring is that a political upheaval without organizations democratically prepared stand at risk of failing. In this perspective the Christian Democrats’ activities with its counterpart provides a preparation to play a role during and upon democratization of the country. As of now, non-regime groups are hardly allowed to participate in elections. Some independent candidates are allowed to run, and some of them share the Christian democratic values of the Christian Democrats’ counterpart. This way some of the skills acquired through the trainings with the Christian Democrats are immediately applicable. The project does not only aim at organizational strengthening of the party but also strengthening the party’s communication skills. Consciousness raising and politicization among ordinary people is strategically important in a country where the word ‘politics’ is associated with personal power hoarding and enrichment. In Kenya the program theory is that democracy would gain from strengthened party organizations. Kenya has inherited the British system of single-member constituencies and parliamentarians often cut loose from parties as soon as they are elected, and fail to link up with other social movements. Therefore, party secretariats need to be strengthened. By targeting the party secretariats of all major parties, it is expected that democratic practices in the secretariats will trickle down in the party organization. C. Project design and (D.) operationsIn the post-Soviet country many meetings with the Christian Democrats have to be held abroad. In Kenya activities are multi-party in the sense that 11 (originally seven) Kenyan parties are involved. The project forms part of a wider project run by NDI Kenya and financed by the Norwegian government. In the post-Soviet country, the Christian Democrats keep in close contact also with NDI, as well as the Swedish and German Christian democrats, who also run projects with Belarusans. The project with the post-Soviet party is designed with a regional chapter of the Christian Democrats (Rogaland) as a major counterpart. Feeling of ‘ownership’, commitment and personal contacts result from that. One example: The post-Soviet party’s summer camp 2014 had anti-alcoholism as one of its subjects. The Christian Democrats Rogaland sent two members – one policewoman and one policeman – experienced in dealing with alcohol-related problems. In addition, the chairperson of the regional branch, with a background from public communication, was also invited. The Christian Democrats have routinized its quality control of the contribution from its party members. The selection process is as follows: As soon as the subject for the meetings has been decided the party’s international secretary contacts members with a relevant background. After having prepared their presentations they send the draft to the secretary for quality control, which mainly refers to context sensitivity and context relevance.Many Christian Democrat party members spend much time on the project on a voluntary basis. The Christian Democrats’ international secretary is a full position, and around 50 per cent is spent on the democracy support projects. He was hired at the beginning of the new period, i.e. 2011. The Christian Democrats’ experience with this is that having one person employed at the party’s HQ secures insight in the countries in which one is operating, also the secretary’s insight in project reporting and development aid benefits from him being employed. Reportedly, doing this on a voluntary basis would be difficult. Reporting to Norad requires efforts over time and professionalism. E. Documented resultsThe post-Soviet party emulated elements of the Norwegian Christian Democrats’ policies for the reduction of alcohol consumption. Skills trained in the project have been used during electoral campaigns and in elaborating on the party’s program. The Christian Democrats consider the Kenyan handbook in party work to be an important outcome, and the parties that were involved in the cooperation from the outset consider it to be theirs. NDI uses it in its work with parties. Moreover, NDI makes use of the Norwegian Christian Democrats’ project to get more in direct contact with parties, also outside the capital. F. Lessons learntAlthough very useful to discipline project management, being under Norad could be problematic for instance in case the authorities in the post-Soviet country make the project activities a problem, e.g. by complaining to the Norwegian government. Then the MFA would have to be involved by having to comment or get deeper involved. The Christian Democrats have some but fairly limited contact with the relevant MFA departments for their projects. It is likely that increasing this contact would be a good way to prepare for possible political controversy. The Christian Democrats report that cooperation with Nordic colleagues has been particularly valuable in the process of building own competence. Also the experiences from bringing regional party organizations directly into project cooperation has been summed up as positive because it enables closer personal relations across cooperating parties. The benefits from linking up with ongoing processes in partner parties is another lesson mentioned by the Christian Democrats. Young Christian Democrats (KrFU)A. Background. About the country context and partnerThe Young Christian Democrats’ (hereafter KrFU) projects cover the same countries as the mother party. The youth wing involved itself in the post-Soviet country before KrF, and has more than ten year experience in the country. In the post-Soviet country KrFU is cooperating with two youth organizations. Also in Kenya KrFU has a long history of cooperation that nonetheless was hampered by the violence in 2007. The initial contact and subsequent partnership between KrFU and IPYF started in 2011 during a study trip to Kenya, which was financed by the information grant (Norwegian: Informasjonsst?tten) from Norad. The idea of developing a strategic plan for IPYF was first developed during a workshop supported by the Norwegian Young Christian Democrats. IPYF members felt the need to re-structure themselves in-light of the just concluded March 4, 2013 General Elections, and devise new ways through which they can engage and nurture young leadership, in-between elections. Here, the Young Christian Democrats make use of the momentum offered by the fact that there is a quota of young people to be elected to representative organs. Earlier KrFU projects with the two countries were funded through LNU, the Norwegian Children and Youth Council B. Program TheoryIn Kenya KrFU aims to follow up a group of young people over time with training and joint activities. The project consists in training youth politicians from the major political parties within the framework of Inter-Party Youth Forum (IPYF) on constructive engagement in political processes. In the post-Soviet country this is more difficult due to activist circulation. Training is in leadership, media performance, debate technique. Subjects for each training are discussed on skype beforehand. Subjects have been among others Christian democratic values, internet security; management; leadership, how to carry out internal debates, and campaigning. Workshops are the main format of the interaction between the organizations. Group work is preferred. Lectures do not function well. The East European colleagues take part in KrFU’s congresses. This way they are shown how KrFU make democratic decisions. In this respect, KrFU’s methodology is similar to that of KrF. C. Project design and (D.) operationsIn Kenya KrFU cooperates with the Inter-party youth forum (IPFY), as well as NDI. This means KrFU has a two-by-two relationship in the post-Soviet country and a multi-party project in Kenya. During the initial project design between KrFU and IPYF, there was a common will to ensure that the Norwegian side of the project was also multi-party, not only the Kenyan side, Norad also suggested taking this approach. Based on these factors, KrFU decided to invite likeminded Young Conservatives and Young Liberals to take part during project trips. KrFU claims it would be difficult to include youth organizations that are far from them in political outlook, mentioning the young social democrats (AUF) as an example. The international advisor is employed in a 40 per cent position of which 30 per cent is from Norad and ten per cent from KrFU to follow up the project. The deputy leader of the international committee follows the project closely on a volunteer basis. This has proved to make personnel transitions smoother, enabling project activities to continue as planned.E. Documented resultsPost-Soviet country: Both youth groups with which KrFU is cooperating are in negotiations to receive observer status in the YEPP (Youth of the European People’s Party). The initial process started during project trainings in Lithuania where party members received training on democratic organizations. YEPP is KrFU’s sister party in the European Union, hence, the initial contact point for the post-Soviet youth parties with YEPP was through project seminars in Lithuania where platforms for discussion and networking were created. There are many potentially positive outcomes that could come about from the post-Soviet youth parties gaining observer status in YEPP, but they would be side-effects.Kenya: After a project seminar in Nairobi, IPYF created a strategic policy document that involved all major youth parties in Kenya. The creation and content of this document reflects the thematic content of the seminar and shows that Kenyan youth political parties have internalized and used the knowledge gained through project activities.F. Lessons learntKrFU used to run its East European and Kenyan projects through LNU. The stricter demands and more close follow-up provided by Norad has structured KrFU’s work. The Young Christian Democrats also call attention to the potentials of synergy between the information grant and the democracy support projects. The organization also point at the possibility that what usually are considered mere project deliveries, like seminars and workshops, in countries with politically repressive regimes, may be considered outcomes in themselves. Senterpartiet (The Centre Party)A. Background. About the country context and partnersThe Centre Party has carried out democracy support projects in one country only - Tanzania – since the initiation of NDS in 2002. The justification has been that Tanzania for many years has been one of Norway’s main development partners, and since the 1990s the country has embarked on a stable democratic track. The opposition parties gained strength in the last elections. Currently the country is experiencing a process to review and revise the constitution. The key issue emerging is decentralization and the proposal to establish relatively autonomous regions.The long time engagement of the Centre Party in Tanzania has contributed to in-depth knowledge of the country and a variety of personal and institutional contacts. Nevertheless, its multi-party project in a rural district, Magu, was subject to a very critical evaluation commissioned by NDS (Henningsen and Braathen, 2009). The main critique concerned lack of understanding of the local power relations underpinning the project, and the report held that the project was infected by the ‘posho’ (per diem) syndrome. The Centre Party took the critique seriously. It discontinued the project and spent the remaining time and resources in 2010 to identify a new district and new partners. In collaboration with the national secretariats of the three main parties – the ruling party CCM and the opposition parties CHADEMA and CUF - it chose the poor rural district of Mtwara in the southern part of the mainland as site for the new project (2011-2014). It was to be managed by the all-party Tanzanian Centre for Democracy (TCD), which also has Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD) as a main partner. TCD recruited two local field officers responsible for the day-to-day management and facilitation of the project. Within the district, also one of the minor parties (UDP) was invited to participate along with three mentioned bigger parties. B. Program Theory The new project established in the Mtwara district was named Elimu no demokrasia - “Learning/knowledge and democracy”. Three basic assumptions inform the project. First, democracy has to be built bottom-up. It has to be firmly rooted in the local communities. Second, although the multi-party system represents a historical progress, the side-effect is that it increases political segregation at the local level and hampers co-operative arrangements for development. Co-operation, as exemplified by farmers’ co-operatives, is a key tool for democratic, social and economic modernization. Third, illiteracy has to be out rooted, and education is the main method to enhance democratic practices and inclusion of women, youth and other politically marginalised groups. While these views are familiar for those who know the Centre Party in Norway, they are also in tune with some basic postulates of the larger parties in Tanzania. The challenge is to create a few local show-cases (or models) of good democratic governance, productive inter-party dialogues and popular participation, and then convince party leaders at the national level to roll-out the methodology to build this type of local democracy throughout the country. C. Project design and (D.) operationsThe project was built around the study circle method. 32 study circles were to be established every year, one per village, an around 20 participants in each circle. Over three years, study circles were to reach 96 of the 155 villages in the district, taking 1800 villagers through four steps or levels of education. The main project activity was the training of 32 study circle leaders annually – eight from the four political parties – equal number of men and women. The training was facilitated by two field officers recruited in the district. A district steering committee comprising the four parties and equal number of men and women was to monitor the project, and national leaders of the parties were called to the district twice a year to discuss the results of the project. The Centre Party’s project leader of the Centre Party has visited the capital and Mtwara district twice a year., and a new group of Centre Party members is recruited every year to make a study trip to Tanzania and Mtwara. E. Documented resultsThere have been reported less conflicts between party leaders locally. A side effect is that the citizens want to hold their village leaders to account, and this has increased the number of a new type of conflict many places. The education material has therefore included issues such as how to recall and elect new sub-village leaders. There is more self-reliance among women – many of the study circle participants have been elected into the village school committees, and many have stated they are candidates in the coming elections to become, a hamlet (sub-village) chairperson, a village chairperson or a ward councilor. Men have started to share information about their revenues with their wives. Hamlet chairpersons have changed their way of relating to the citizens – they listen more, and they let citizens look into the hamlet accounts etc. Also internally in the parties there have been changes – the district leadership are forced to listen to their grassroots members, according to the project leader. At the national level, the party secretaries of the four parties and the Tanzanian Centre for Democracy support the idea of rolling-out “the very successful Mtwara project” to other districts. Representatives of the opposition parties seem to be even more satisfied than the ruling party with the project. F. Lessons learntPeople are still demanding per diem (‘posho’) to participate in the study circles, but this has been limited without too big protests to a modest per diem only to the field officers, study circle facilitators and hamlet leaders participating in the meetings/seminars. The Centre Party has experienced a good synergy between the democracy support project and the information grant (“informasjons-st?tten”) provided by Norad. The latter grant is used for exchange visits: Norwegians going for study trips to Tanzania, and Tanzanian party leaders coming to Norway to attend local branch meetings and the national congress of the Centre Party. Therefore the party study association (‘studieforbundet’) is an appropriate manager for the democracy support project. As a result, ordinary party members become more conscious that they are part of a global whole.Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party)A. Background. About the country context and partnerEl Salvador has gone through more than two decades since the end of civil war, and lately the country has made progress towards institutionalized politics. The presidential elections in 2014, where the leftist FMLN’s candidate won with a very small margin, was accepted by the Right wing although only after some days. One of the reasons is that the elections were supervised by external observers who found them to be fair. El Salvador thus is in a phase of its political history where there is a positive momentum. The project aims at strengthening internal party democracy in FMLN with an emphasis on the inclusion of young people and women. B. Program TheoryMuch of the activities are carried out by FMLN alone without direct SV participation. SV’s project coordinator visits El Salvador once or twice a year. SV carries out project visits thematically in very small groups. Communication with FMLN takes place as conversations and discussion among those working on environmental protection, gender issues, and local government. The youth cooperation practices two meetings annually, one in El Salvador and one in Norway. Three times a year SV receives an updated report in log frame with some verbal discussion on specific issues. The report is written cumulatively where results are added as they are produced. The project also includes mutual electoral observation. C. Project design and (D.) operationsThe project started up as a pre-feasibility study in 2011. Two planning meetings were carried out on baseline and log frame and also with the aim of identifying who in the FMLN structures represents the various committees and structures. The main counterpart in FMLN was their international committee and those working with the municipalities. The agreement was signed by a member of FMLN’s top party leadership. SV spent some time in the beginning on getting FMLN to open up on what were their most important needs that could be remedied through a joint project. After a while they opened up, which must be ascribed to the fact that the two parties are “in family”. Some issues were not included, however. One of these was the ?primaries? FMLN used to have earlier, e.g. in selecting the presidential candidate in 2004. The general experiences, however, was that primaries could lead to harmful internal rivalries. In both parties members involved in the policy fields – environmental protection and local self-government – of the project take part. There is considerable competence on El Salvador among the SV members involved directly in the project, and this insight is being shared with SV leaders taking part in visits to the country. SV’s project leader does not work in the party HQ or parliamentary group but has close contact with them. He is working in an NGO for environmental protection and development and is familiar with Norad’s methodology. The tasks are divided between the project leader and one secretary at the party HQ. Both fill in time sheets. SV has no international secretary and a very small staff at the party HQ in general. SV has a strong milieu of members involved in solidarity work, and in particular with Latin America. The project group is based on this milieu, and all are Spanish-speaking. The youth organization that has close links with like-minded youth organisations in various Latin American countries, is also involved.FMLN has one part time project coordinator employed through the project and a project group with representing the party’s youth, women, environment and international sections. E. Documented resultsAlready in the planning phase there were some useful results. By asking questions about FMLN’s organization SV and FMLN together identified weakness in the party. One example is the fact that the membership register was very weak, which was acknowledged as a problem by FMLN. After three years of activities, FMLN now has an orderly register kept in a safe way. It is possible to check who is a member or not and also some basic information is given, e.g. on occupation. It is also possible to keep track with the percentage of e.g. women and young people among the members. This way FMLN is able to send mail directly, e.g. to its members working as teachers. Investments in hardware through the project and software developed by party activists were part of this. There are now separate youth structures in FMLN as a direct result of the project. Likewise, the environmental secretariat set up by FMLN in 2010 has made use of the project. As of now there are environmental structures in around 50 of El Salvador’s 262 municipalities. These groups have carried out local diagnosticos ambientales (environmental assessments). Thanks to the joint project with SV FMLN got the resources to carry out the assessments right away. F. Lessons learnt SV finds that being under Norad has the advantage of forcing the projects to focus on results. This makes the party not only concentrate on activities but on long term effects and impacts. Therefore, SV argues in favour of applying Norad’s focus and technical standards. Venstre (Liberal Party)A. BackgroundVenstre has, like Fremskrittspartiet (the Progress Party), not applied for funds from Norad for democracy support projects. However, Venstre participated in NDS. The closure of NDS in 2009 coincided with Venstre falling below the threshold of 4.0 per cent in the parliament elections that year, resulting in a dramatic reduction of seats in Stortinget, reduced public grants, and subsequent austerity measures at the HQ. In this situation, the party could not afford using the own resources required to administer democracy support to other countries. The party leadership regrets deeply that it had to discontinue the party-to-party co-operation with Civic United Front in Tanzania (project since 2006) and Democratic Progressive Party in Zambia (pre-project 2008).B. Lessons learntVenstre is very positive to renewed engagement in democracy support projects. It has an active international affairs committee, and the party leadership and its youth organization participates in the meetings of European and international confederations of liberal parties. However, initiatives to co-operate more closely with other Norwegian parties, chiefly the Christian People’s Party and the Centre Party, in this field of democracy support would be appreciated. Moreover, given Venstre’s hardships in the 2009-2013 parliament period, the secretary-general of the party thinks a basic grant to handle democracy support projects would help the smaller parties a lot, and it would also enhance the stability of the Norwegian democracy support programme as a whole. The basic grant should be independent of the size of the party represented in the parliament. Joint assessment of the projectsThe review here carries out an assessment of: the knowledge of the Norwegian parties about the conditions in the project countries, in which way they strengthen the competence within the partner organizations in which way the democracy projects are embedded in the party organizations and their partnersthe sustainability and cost efficiency of the projectsWe also look at two overall aspects:the developmental-managerial capacity of the Norwegian partiesthe results of the projects in terms of contributing to “well-functioning and democratic party organizations in developing countries Norwegian parties’ knowledge of the country contextsIn general, the Norwegian political parties base their projects on acceptable knowledge of the countries they work with. The main reason can be that the secretaries-general of the parties have realized that the era of amateurism is gone. The evaluations and discussions 2009-2010 may have left a lasting imprint. And Norad may help to set standards and weed out project applications that do not incorporate minimum knowledge of the country. Norad’s assessments of the projects proposals must have been helpful in this respect. Hence, the parties recruit competent project leaders with relevant country knowledge, or they acquire this knowledge in the process of planning the project. Visits to the country, information from the (would-be) partners in the country, and consultation with available experts contribute to that. Often these experts can be found in the own party, or in international NGOs which the project planners keep in high esteem. In the project implementation process there is usually ‘learning by doing’, which increases sharply the country knowledge of the party’s project leader(s) and collaborators. However, what is acceptable knowledge? It refers to knowledge that is socially acceptable but not necessarily what is required given the challenges inherent in the project. It may refer to conventional truths about a country, but not necessarily the critical knowledge of a country. Critical knowledge is to know about hidden and not yet manifest conflicts and problems of the country, to be aware of most of the potential risks surrounding the project. This kind of knowledge typically comes out of a free and open exchange between experts and academics. It is not obvious that Norad, when assessing a given project application, has access to this kind of knowledge and can check whether it is incorporated in the application. In subsequent progress reports the political parties, to a varying degree, at times display incapacity in venturing beyond “socially acceptable” but shallow knowledge of the conditions partner parties are working under. These weaknesses should be a major common concern. A future scheme for democracy support through parties must strengthen the ‘critical knowledge’ about the country contexts of the projects. A more thorough ‘country risk assessment’ that consults available written sources about the country, should be required from the applicants and updated with the annual progress reports. These written sources include books and journal articles, but also trustworthy sources accessible on internet such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, Bertelsmann’s Stiftung’s Transformation Index and others with a focus on the state of democracy and human rights in most countries of the world. Communication with the embassies is a complementary and useful tool in this respect. Also contacts with competence centres in Norway financially supported by Norad, such as the Norwegian Council for Africa (Fellesr?det for Afrika) or the Latin America Groups (LAG), should be made a routine .Capability to strengthen competence within partner organizations The Norwegian parties and projects reviewed show an adequate concern that the partners come out with increased skills and knowledge. The general picture is that the Norwegian parties concentrate on project activities where they have skilled personnel to draw on, e.g. training in work with mass media, presentation techniques, study circles, training of trainers and the like. The Norwegian parties may provide quantitative data about the outputs – e.g. number of people trained. However, the outcomes in terms of increased competence within the organization as a result of these activities is seldom well reported. This neglect has to be addressed. The project applicants must define clear indicators of change and present a brief baseline of the type of competence they want to strengthen. Of course, this type of information has to be handled with discretion. Capability to embed the projects within the organizations The majority of secretaries-general of the Norwegian parties are enthusiastic supporters of the democracy support projects, and the projects are also supported by the national leadership of the parties. Some parties – Arbeiderpartiet, Kristelig Folkeparti and Senterpartiet – combine the democracy support project and projects for information-from-the-Global-South funded by Norad (“informasjonsst?tten). This seems to create positive synergies. People from the partner organization visit the national congress of the Norwegian party and some of its local branches, and people from the Norwegian may visit the country and local branches of the partner organization. A third source of public funding, the Norwegian Peace Corps (Fredskorpset) may ensure that younger staff from the parties are exchanged for a certain time period, contributing to an even stronger embeddedness of the partnership in both organizations. However, very few Norwegian parties make use of Fredskorpset.Within the partner organizations, the critical period for embeddedness and commitment seems to be between proposal being submitted to Norad and actual implementation taking place. In these planning stages, sometimes only one person in the partner organization – typically its international secretary – is really committed to the project. Given high turn-over among this category of staff, some projects never come into life after the key contact person has moved to another job/employer (cfr Arbeiderpartiet’s project with ANC Women’s League), meaning the resources spent on planning, and writing and assessment of proposals, have been wasted. This means that at least two persons - the secretary-general, the international secretary and/or project leader, in the partner organization have to be incorporated during the planning stage. Senterpartiet’s project in Tanzania is a master piece of involving the commitment of many leaders at many levels in the partner country: leaders both at national, district and grassroots levels, and in four different parties coordinated by a national umbrella organization for party development. Sustainability and cost efficiency of the projectsIt has not been possible to assess the sustainability of the projects since almost all of them are on-going and have only been operating for maximum three years. Sustainability is best measured by their impacts on the party organizations after the project has been completed. In monetary terms, the projects are not cost efficient. This is not because they are carried out in inefficient ways on project level – rather to the contrary - but because the total funding is too small. Norad spends disproportionately much time on handling project proposals and reports as compared to the size of the projects. Likewise, the parties spend much resources on basic activities irrespective of the size of the projects. However, if we take into account the non-monetary and human resources put into the projects on a voluntary and non-paid basis among members of the Norwegian parties, the picture might be different. Apart from a project leader/secretary, none of the Norwegian party members participating in the implementation of the projects – e.g. as seminar facilitators in the partner country – are paid. While the efficiency of amateurism can be questioned, there are many positive impacts that might come out of this type of resource mobilization. (It has not been possible for the reviewers to go further into this matter). One example of coping efficiently with amateurishness is the KrF project leader’s quality control of the relevance and appropriateness of the Norwegian contributions at workshops before the project proposal is finalized.. Contribution to democratic party organizationsDo Norwegian democracy support projects via political parties contribute to “well-functioning and democratic party organizations in developing countries” in an effective manner? What have been the results and effects?First, we need to assess the immediate effects– whether there have been outcomes at all, and if so what type of results. We may call this technical effectiveness of the project. Second, the long term effects, or impacts. As explained earlier they are difficult to assess, but the likely impacts can be assessed according to the relevance of the observed outcomes for the overall project goal – e.g. “democratic party organizations”, sometimes even “more democratic country”. And linked to that we have to ask if there are other factors (or actors) in the partner organizations that are likely to outweigh the project outcomes and make the project politically non-effective. This is about the social (or political) effectiveness of the project. Technical effectiveness: All the projects looked at have produced results. Examples: training that helped individual participants (women, young people) to become a nominated candidate or even elected (Arbeiderpartiet in Egypt, AUF in Lebanon, H?yre in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Senterpartiet in Tanzania); organizational development that led to new internal practices (Arbeiderpartiet in South Sudan, KrF in post-Soviet country) or new facilities for member activity (AUF in Lebanon, KrfU in Post-Soviet country , KrF in Kenya, SV in El Salvador), inter-party dialogues that led to less conflicts among party representatives (Senterpartiet in Tanzania, KrfU in Kenya) and even joint efforts to hold elected officials to account (Senterpartiet in Tanzania, KrfU ). Social (political) effectiveness: Many of the parties receiving support have top-down decision making structures despite the ideal defended by the Norwegian side that parties should be organisms for membership democracy. Many parties even lack membership registers making participation in meetings through discussion and voting impossible. The parties need democracy, but as long as the party leadership does not share this vision it is very difficult for the Norwegian parties to do anything about it. Senterpartiet has yielded good results in promoting democracy in villages in one district, but it remains to see the effects at the district level and whether the national leaderships roll-out the project to other districts as they say they want. SV has contributed to FMLN's membership register and improved electronic communication between party leadership and the members, and between the members. However, there might be factors operating at other levels of the partner organization, neutralizing the effects of an otherwise relevant and well carried out activity. Most projects within the scheme irrespective of parties involved tend to emphasize the inclusion of young people and women, groups that are often under-represented in party work although often mobilized in the streets. If the training of these two groups lead to later and sustainable involvement in party affairs and politics in general there is a democratizing effect. However, the party's way of operating does not necessarily become more democratic this way, only more inclusive. There is also a potential danger that party leaders endorse training of young people and women just because they do not believe they will constitute a challenge. If the women and young people belong to the families, clans or clientele of the party leaders, training them does not automatically lead to more democracy. In fact, the effect might be the opposite. Therefore the project leaders need critical knowledge (as already pointed out) – not only about the country in general, but even more so about the political culture, practices and power relations surrounding and penetrating the partner organization(s). We may sum up that all the projects have produced outcomes that are relevant for the achievement of the overall project goal. They are likely to produce intended impacts. However, it remains to ascertain that they result in lasting “well-functioning and democratic” party organizations. The developmental-managerial capacity of the Norwegian partiesThe planning, monitoring and reporting (PMR) skills of the Norwegian political parties left a lot to desire during the years of NDS. From a professional development aid view point, the parties’ capacities in this regard were at a low level when the new arrangement started in 2011. And still today, the developmental-managerial capacity of the Norwegian parties is the main critical issue when discussing the future of the arrangement. On the other hand, the rationale for the arrangement has never been that the political parties possess this type of capacity in the first place. They have skills in competing for political power in Norway and for developing party organizations and political programs, all in accordance with basic democratic rules. These skills are relevant for political parties in the East and South. The added value from Norwegian parties stems from sharing these skills. Hence, the criteria for assessment in this regard should be: have the parties shown enough commitment and capacity to develop adequate capacities in sharing their knowledge with partners in the South and East? We have already discussed an important aspect of this capacity, namely skills in understanding political country contexts and adapting partnership projects accordingly. Here we focus on a more technical aspect: Norad’s advisers have spent much time to supervise the Norwegian parties in improving the quality of their project proposals and annual progress reports. Given this fact, have the political parties been able to learn and improve this type of managerial performance? If not, what have been the reasons? In general the evaluators find that the parties have displayed an increased will and commitment to improve their developmental-managerial capacities after NDS was closed down. After 2011, the largest party, Arbeiderpartiet, has recruited a person dedicated to Norad-funded democracy support projects. AUF and KrF have each an international secretary spending around 50 per cent of a full-time position on the democracy support projects. The other parties (and youth organizations) have not been able to allocate sufficient own resources to hire project advisers on a half- or full-time basis. Most critical has this been for small parties, such as Venstre who lost substantial public funding when it fell under the 4 per cent threshold in the parliament elections. The evaluators see that the more paid-up work force a party has available for international democracy support, the higher is the quality of project planning, monitoring and reporting. Still, even the smaller parties and organizations have gradually improved their developmental-managerial skills since 2011. Their combination of part-time (paid) and voluntary efforts have managed to deliver planned outputs and outcomes. The close collaboration between a party and its youth organization may contribute positively to reaching the goals for a project or for the joint involvement in a specific country, as we have seen in the case of Arbeiderpartiet/AUF and KrF/KrFU.Given enough interest among the Norwegian parties, a plan for systematic competence building should be designed. Training courses should be offered every year in PMR (planning-monitoring-reporting of outcomes/results) in conjunction with Norad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (e.g. UKS – Utenriksdepartmentets Kompetansesenter) or more specialized training institutions. The project applicants must learn to define clear indicators of change, particularly when it comes to competence and capacity building. They must learn how to present a brief baseline of the type of competence they want to strengthen. They must learn how to identify and present results in the progress and final reports. The training courses should be compulsory for the project managers in grant-receiving political parties. Henceforth, with (i) more resources to hire a full-time advisor, (ii) more efforts to agree upon definitions of ‘minimum’ and ‘adequate’ skills , combined with (iii) continuous offers to all the political parties to train their designated advisers in PMR and other skills on-demand, the political parties and youth organizations are likely to demonstrate sufficient capacity to manage even a scaled-up support to partners in the South and East. Arrangements of democracy supportAssessment of the Norad-administered arrangement for political partiesThe purpose and design of the arrangement (the Guidelines)The purpose of the arrangement is in §1 in the Guidelines defined as achieving “well-functioning and democratic party organizations in developing countries” (Norad 2011). This goal was formulated in consultation with the Norwegian political parties, of which three participated in a working group to elaborate the guidelines. None of the parties have voiced disagreement with this purpose, but in the interviews some of the party representatives and Norad officials have admitted that the goal is perhaps too narrowly formulated. In particular, the multi-party projects have goals different from or beyond “party organizations”, related to the party system/ electoral system, inter-party relations and relations between political parties, parliament and government. Some of the party representatives also complained that that a focus on party organizations may lead to depoliticized projects, leaving out capacity building in fields where Norwegian political parties have most special skills: political analysis, party program development and external political campaigning. Given their ideology, some parties emphasize building certain relations between certain political/social actors and groups. Another issue is the current requirement in §1 that the support has to be channeled to “ODA-approved countries on the OECD-DAC list”, virtually excluding countries in most post-Soviet countries and in Europe’s neighborhood. Hence, Norad and the political parties should agree on a revised formulation of the purpose of the arrangement. There were no critical comments on the other paragraphs of the Guidelines. Norad’s technical and administrative handling of the arrangement: All project proposals have undergone a thorough scrutiny by Norad’s civil society department. The overwhelming majority of project proposals received very critical remarks for poor risk analysis, superficial insight in the political surrounding of the partner parties, lack of structured thinking on relations between project input, mechanisms and results. Nonetheless, most proposals were approved after some amendments.Norad’s reviews of the project proposals (beslutningsdokumenter) show a good grasp of what we have called critical knowledge, also on countries not normally dealt with by Norad. Norad has adequately drawn on the embassies in its technical assessments. Norad’s authority, integrity and professional independence was demonstrated when it rejected a proposal from the major party in the ruling coalition of the time. In spite of problems with getting proposals approved, all the party representatives interviewed for the review expressed satisfaction with the way Norad has handled the democracy support scheme. The main point of criticism from several parties has been Norad’s emphasis on detailed planning and reporting on results. The parties in general argue that one should not compare party-to-party collaboration with highly professionalized development aid, and Norad should not apply the strict reporting standards from that field. On the other hand, the party representatives admit that a certain set of results have to be demanded from their use of public money. A learning process seems to have started, with increased mutual understanding and adaptation between the political parties and Norad. This process has to continue. A result-based management model for the projects based on the specificities of political work, that the parties often refer to, have to be developed. This model would have to be no less strict than the model applied by Norad for civil society organizations. A major weakness in Norad’s handling of the arrangement is that there has not been a systemic work to build the capacities of the parties in a results-based management model. Some of the parties can recall they participated in one gathering after 2011. Most of the political parties also miss joint meetings being convened to exchange experiences. Against this one can argue, in defence of Norad, that capacity building of Norwegian organizations is not its mission. Nevertheless, the needs for training in PMR and other required skills, as well as experience sharing between the parties, has to be addressed if the arrangement should be continued in one way or another. What has changed since NDS was closed down?In the following section we compare the situation reported in the Norad Report (2010), which evaluated the arrangement administered by Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support, with the current situation. In the previous section we identified a major change: while the project applications during the times of NDS were decided upon by a board of party representatives, the applications after 2011 have been handled by a professional body (Norad) being adequately independent of the political parties. The process of getting a project proposal approved is much more challenging for the Norwegian parties than before. There have been several cases of proposals rejected, the disapprovals have been justified in duly professional ways, and the disapprovals have been accepted by the applicant and used rationally as a learning exercise to improve their next proposals. In addition, the annual progress report and final reports produced by the parties have to be more concerned with results. Apart from these overall administrative improvements, has the new ‘professional regime’ made any difference in the way projects are designed and implemented? Have the projects produced any lasting effects on the functioning and democratization of the parties in the South and East? The basic project approach of the Norwegian partiesBefore 2010 “the larger Norwegian parties showed less commitment and engagement than the smaller parties” regarding democracy support (Norad Report 2010). After 2011 this is not any more the case. The larger parties, Arbeiderpartiet and H?yre, show as much engagement as the smaller parties. Arbeiderpartiet has taken the lead in a number of new projects proposed. Before 2010 “the programme theory underlying the projects suggested lack of understanding for the context within which political parties in the South operate”. As disclosed in a previous section, the parties have managed to develop ‘acceptable’ knowledge about the country contexts, but they are still far from displaying the ‘critical’ knowledge required to understand the main challenges facing democratization of the country and its party organizations. Moreover, the Norwegian parties are only to a varying degree able to translate a fair analysis of the context into a project which adequately address the identified challenges. There is more extensive use of external and country-specific expertise than before, and also more exchange with other democracy support programs operating in the selected country. This is good. KrF/KrFU’s work in Kenya and Senterpartiet in Tanzania are positive examples. Some progress has been observed, but there is still some way to go.Before 2010 “the parties did not reflect adequately upon the challenges inherent in the transfer of knowledge and ‘democratic values” from Norway to a partner country in the South or East. We think the parties now exhibit a realistic understanding of the limits of directly transferring Norway-specific experiences and capacity building methods. The parties emphasize dialogue with the partner organization(s) to identify which experiences, methods or parts of a certain method that are relevant for the partner. This is the case e.g. for Arbeiderpartiet and its Women-Can-Do-It courses. The Norwegian project leaders have more properly defined ideas now about what should be their added value within a partnership. Their preferred approach now tends to be a ‘facilitator’ or ‘mentor’ rather than ‘educator’, ‘role model’ or just simply a ‘sponsor’. While not pretending to be ‘ideologically neutral’, they try to avoid to operate as ‘missionaries’ in its narrow sense.Partner choice and partner relationships Before 2010 “the Norwegian parties did not always choose the larger and more representative parties in developing countries as their partners”. Here we have seen important changes. H?yre initiated co-operation with the former ruling party of Indonesia, Golkar. Arbeiderpartiet started a project with the dominant political organization of South Sudan, SPLM, and had Norad’s approval to embark on a project in South Africa with ANC’s Women League. SV created a partnership with what later on became the ruling party of El Salvador, FMLN. H?yre and Arbeiderpartiet have experienced, however (in Indonesia and South Africa), that large and powerful parties in the South do not always allocate sufficient collective attention to their Norwegian partnerships. Partnerships based on clearer ideological affinities with minority parties as in Bosnia-Hercegovina (H?yre) and Egypt (Arbeiderpartiet) have fared better. Before 2010, “systems for good day-to-day communication between the partners and with emphasis on continuity of the management group on both sides” were not enough emphasized. With some exceptions, problems seem to be minor now. Internet and mobile telephony provide good technological opportunities. Embedding the partnership within a wide and inclusive group in the partner organization to cope with personal mobility remains a constant challenge, however.Project designBefore 2010 “the projects were too small and geographically too dispersed to expect significant results”. After 2011 the average annual project budget has been doubled as compared with the NOK 320?000 average before 2010. At present the projects are larger, but we question elsewhere whether they are large enough. Nevertheless, the parties now tend to concentrate their activities to one country (SV and Senterpartiet), one project for two or more neighbor countries (H?yre and AUF), or two countries (Arbeiderpartiet and KrF/KrFU). Before 2010, “many of the projects consisted of stand-alone seminars with little follow-up and continuity;. The project designs were not very experimental, usually they were limited to seminar-based Training-of-Trainers (ToT). After 2011 also this practice has changed. Where training of trainers are emphasized, they are part of a multi-year continuous and monitored process of grassroots empowerment (Senterpartiet in Tanzania) or party organization development (AUF in Lebanon and Arbeiderpartiet in Egypt). Capacity building includes elements of staff exchange and supervision of key party building activities such as the development of a programmatic platform. Informal per-to-peer mentorship tends to be emphasized as complementary to more formal and planned activities. Before 2010, the projects were specific about target groups in social terms (e.g. youth, women),but not so well defined in organizational terms. Also here there have been changes. The projects tend to define more clearly that certain levels of the organization – e.g. party leadership, party grassroots/local branches, intermediate organizational levels – are to be strengthened as a result of the activities.Lasting effects? By 2010 there was “little evidence that the projects have had any lasting effects on democratization of the parties, although the projects had positive effects for individuals who had participated in the projects”. What should be the overall assessment of the arrangement in place after 2011? As summed up in chapter 2.2, it is likely that the new scheme has produced a higher number of documented and immediate outcomes than the previous scheme. The projects after 2011 have produced positive effects not only for individuals, but also for party organizations and for inter-party relations. The new scheme has already produced outcomes that are relevant for the achievement of the overall project goals. However, it remains to ascertain to what extent they result in lasting “well-functioning and democratic” party organizations. Experiences internationallyIn the following we will assess the Norwegian democracy support in the light of, first, the current academic and professional debate and, subsequently, democracy support in other donor countries.The aim of the section chapter is to enable a discussion on alternatives to the current Norwegian model for democracy support to political parties. One central question here is the advantages of multi-party centres and party-associated organisations respectively as the main repository of knowledge and responsibility.As already noted in the 2010 evaluation of the Norwegian scheme for democracy support, there are a set of considerations that seems to be common for the European countries involved in this field of work. One of them is to what extent the cooperation should be on a party-to-party basis, alternatively wall-to-wall, involving as many parties as possible in joint activities. In this perspective, the Norwegian scheme stands out as being largely sister party based. Also the Swedish model is by and large party-to-party but reserves 30 per cent of the funds for multi-party activities. The total sums involved are considerably bigger than in the Norwegian case, which allows for considerable party-to-party activities run by organisations set up for that purpose. The Dutch and Finnish schemes are purely multi-party very much in line with the two countries traditions for broad multi-party governments. The Danish model is a hybrid of the two. The European countries involved in democracy support also differ when it comes to what regions of the world they choose to operate in. Least developed countries and low income countries are in focus in the Danish, Finnish and Dutch schemes whereas the Swedish parties have elaborate cooperation with parties in the EU neighbourhood countries. This is also to some extent the case for the Norwegian parties (Egypt, Bosnia-Herzegovina and others).A brief overview of the current academic and professional debateTargeting political parties for democracy support is based on basic insights from political science. For instance, ?yvind ?sterud (1991:234) points at four basic functions of parties: To formulate political objectives and put them together in “programme packages”; Serve as channels where interests are articulated and coordinated; Form an environment in which groups are socialized and mobilized behind political demands; Recruit candidates for political positions. Other authors point at the additional functions of integrating the population and the formation of parliament and government (Bartolini and Mair 2001). The 2010 evaluation of the Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support (Norad Report 2010:49) concluded that there are recurrent themes and tensions in several national schemes for democracy support through parties. One basic tension stems from the difference between the largely apolitical, “sociological” and technological character of developmental cooperation and the political, and fundamentally competitive, zero-sum game character of much of political party activities. As pointed out by Carrother and de Gramont (2013) the aid sector started to acknowledge that domestic politics matter as early as in the 1990’s and that development is not mainly an objective to be reached through socio-economic results in the axis donors – civil society. Politics - defined as the dynamics of contestation and cooperation among social actors with differing interests and power – forms part of development. Democracy support through political parties is an institutionalisation of this insight. There is also some rivalry between the proponents of partisan twinning and those in favor of multi-party cooperation across party lines. Among the proponents of the former model, we often find parties that belong to international party families and/or have an ideological profile that is recognizable irrespective of geographical location in the Global North, East, or /South. Here, the driving force is to strengthen sister parties. Most likely, this is a source of additional efforts put into the work by the North partner. Often, however, as e.g. pointed out by the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD 2011:28) “sister parties” prove not to be as similar as expected, which makes “party-to-party” a more accurate epithet for the cooperation. Even when likeminded parties in Norway and the East/South find together in pairs the development aid agenda is normative, e.g. leading to training of women and young people to strengthen their position in politics. The Swedish model based on party-affiliated associations ensures that 70 per cent of the funds are spent on party-to-party activities. The model of multi-party cooperation has its main strengths in being capable of attracting parties without prior international links and in its ability to address issues pertaining to the institutional set-up within which parties operate. Often new democracies lack capacities for reaching broad political settlements needed for sustainable reforms. Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy, NIMD, has evolved into a specialized organization for the facilitation of dialogue through developed multi-party platforms in a selection of countries. These platforms differ from country to country, among others regarding the degree of involvement of the parties as compared to that of an impartial secretariat in the administrative and political management of the platforms. Kemp, van der Staak, T?r? and Magolowongo (2013) point at two pillars of democratic development. First, there is party competition, for which the operating mechanism is elections. Secondly, there is party cooperation for which dialogue is a core mechanism. The remainder of their book is a detailed account of how multi-party platforms may be used to create mechanisms for inter-party dialogue. The authors argue that there is a distinction between debate (where parties try to distinguish themselves, often within a limited time frame) and dialogue (where there is time for reflection and relaxed exchange of views).The role of the platform is to build consensus, seek the common good, and take the lead in developing agendas. Here one could object that these are functions of existing representative bodies like local councils and national assemblies in developing countries. Setting up donor-driven forums amounts to little more than yet another parallel structure undermining the countries’ own institutions. Carothers (2006:205) argues along these lines. The authors agree to a certain extent pointing at institutionalized dialogue, e.g. through multi-party dialogue forums, as one among several mechanisms for inter-party cooperation, the other being grand coalitions, parliamentary standing committees, parliamentary caucuses, informal dialogues. Dialogue forums should not replace formal institutions but rather work in “continuous coordination” with them (2013:299). Forums are conceived as complementary to parliaments. They have a function when the ordinary political institutions do not offer opportunities for this. This may for instance, be the case when party organizations as such, not only parliamentarians, need to be involved in dialogue across party divides to secure consensus behind a settlement for reform. The problem of parliamentarians without anchoring in a party organization, of course, is most prevalent when MP’s are elected in single-member districts.Party-to-party and multi-party projects may complement each other. It makes it possible to take one step further in-depth than the formalities of multi-party systems and transparent elections to address the question of party efficiency. Party-to-party approaches allows for activities that are more “intimate” in the sense that they have to do with the party’s inner functioning and require a great deal of trust to let external people in. Also the fact that two parties may use “mirroring” or comparison as a method may be conducive to results, e.g. when discussing each other’s nomination processes or programmatic work. On the other hand, multi-party project have the advantage of being more capable of getting an overview of the totality of the political picture in a country and thereby identify areas where more democracy work is needed. The Netherlands - NIMDThe Dutch democracy support to political parties is being carried out strictly across party lines. This is in line with the Dutch practice of multi-party cabinets most often including parties of quite different ideological orientations. The programme is run by the Hague-based Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy (NIMD) that perceives itself as a niche organization with a sole focus on the role of political parties. NIMD was established in 2000 by seven Dutch parties and got a permanent secretariat in 2002. By 2013 it had 24 full-time staff in addition to a number of interns. The five country offices have around 50 staff altogether. NIMD carries out activities in more than 20 countries in Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Caucasus. Among these countries are Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Jordan, Egypt, and Libya that all are part of EU’s Neighbourhood Policy. NIMD has developed a ‘theory of change’ (ToC), as outlined in its Multi Annual Plan - 2012-2015 (NIMD-2012). This makes NIMD the first democracy assistance organization focused on political parties to have a ToC. The ToC aims at a “democratic society in which the rule of law is observed and the public good fostered”. To reach this NIMDs contribution is to help establish “a well-functioning democratic multiparty political system”. Three outcomes have been selected to reach this goal: a) a functioning multiparty dialogue (outputs: dialogue centres and meetings), b) legitimate political parties (outputs: strengthening of party secretariat’s capacity to develop policies), and c) fruitful interaction between political and civil society (output: training). The activities are divided into two clusters, a) political party dialogue and b) political party support. Political party dialogue is the more important of the two clusters of activity. NIMD’s core identity is being a provider of platforms and centres – forums - for inter-party dialogue, taking place with all parties represented in the country’s national assembly. Centres for Multiparty Democracy (CMDs) constitute the forum on which the activities, i.e. inter-party dialogue, take place. The idea is that involving the political leadership helps parties pre-empt political conflicts that might otherwise spill over into violence. Moreover, NIMD aims at helping parties find shared positions on such issues as constitutional reforms; reviews of electoral systems; improvements in the management of elections; increased levels of participation by women and young people in the political process; and legislation on political parties. The NIMD model is based on the intervention of the CMD’s as non-confrontational and non-partisan “brokers”. Political party support is considered a supplement to the inter-party dialogue. Its aim is to help build legitimate parties. The NIMD approach to strengthen capacity of parties is twofold: strengthening processes needed by a party to analyse, develop, and promote policies relevant for its support base, and secondly on skills, capacity and knowledge needed in a dialogue process. The capacity to aggregate and articulate the interests of their electorate and present them in the form of policies (also in relation to their representatives in parliament) is recognised by NIMD to be key. Therefore, NIMD provides resources for technical assistance and organizational strengthening, so that political parties can generate strategic plans and policy proposals. Total annual size: 10 mill € (of which 85 per cent from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs)Sweden – PAOsSince 1995 democracy support has been carried out by so-called party affiliated organisations (PAOs) first as an experimental scheme, since 2002 on a permanent basis. The scheme is managed by Sida, the Swedish agency for development aid. PAOs may be established by political parties with a current representation in the Parliament and a representation in at least one of the two preceding legislative periods. The countries covered belong to the OECD/DAC list of states plus states in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. The party support is linked to the larger objectives of strengthening human rights and development of democracy, but the Swedish authorities consider party support to be specific - it touches upon a country’s sovereignty, and projects therefore risk being under suspicion of interfering a country’s internal affairs. Therefore, the Sida strategy emphasizes that party support must be treated as a particular field of work within development aid. The party support is divided into two activity fields. Firstly, support to sister parties and closely related organisations. In authoritarian and post-authoritarian countries also non-party actors who have a potential for developing new political leadership, movements or parties may receive support. Secondly, support to party systems. In most case this means multi-party support. Party system support is held to be particularly relevant in countries that recently started up a process of democratization and in new democracies in need of consolidation. The Swedish strategy for democracy support through PAOs reserves 30 per cent of the total budget for party systems. The support through the PAOs are distributed according to a fixed system. For its support to sister parties each PAO receives an annual sum calculated on the basis of the number of Parliament seats of its mother party. The support is given on the condition that Sida approved the PAO’s annual working programme with a particular focus on the PAO’s routines to set objectives, monitor and follow up results. As for the support to party systems, however, the PAOs compete for funds on an equal basis irrespective of party size and Sida applies quality criteria in its selection of projects to support. Here, PAOs may apply for funds alone or together with closely related organisations or institutions. Joint applications including more than one PAO are also welcome. In case a Swedish political party fails to be re-elected to Riksdagen, its PAO enter into a four year phasing-out period in which the grant is gradually reduced (75-50-50-25 percent of the original grant). Maximum ten percent of the PAO’s grant through Sida may be used for making contacts and maximum 8 percent for administrative purposes. In order to secure sharing of experiences a reference group under the MFA has been established with two representatives from each PAO plus representatives from Sida and the Parliament’s administrative body. Table STYLEREF 1 \s \* MERGEFORMAT 3. SEQ Tabell\* Arabic\s 1 \* MERGEFORMAT 1Swedish democracy support via party-affiliated organisations (PAOs), 2013PAO:Grants received (2013)*Number of employees**Olof Palme International Centre18,4 50 ***Jarl Hjalmarsson (Conservative) 21,112Green Forum4,9 2CIS (Centre Party)4,6 3Swedish International Liberal Centre7,7 8VIF (Left Party)5,7 3KIC (Cristian Democratic Party) 17,3****10Total79,788* in million SEK** According to PAO websites*** PAO integrated in the Olof Palme International Centre, where party support is only one of several fields of work **** Including ”Program for Young Politicians in Africa” for which KIC is responsible, but joined by the social democrats, Centre Party and greens. Finland - DemoDemo Finland was established in 2006 after a two-year pilot phase. Demo considers itself to be a sister organisation of the Dutch NIMD. Demo has two working groups. One of them is working on gender issues and consists of the political women’s organisations. Similarly, the working group on youth consists of the parties’ youth and student organisations. The grants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have grown steadily and reach 1 mill euro in 2014. All parties represented in Finland’s Parliament take part in Demo’s work and have a representative on the Board. Demo has eight staff members.The activities are concentrated in four countries: Nepal, Tunisia, Tanzania, and Zambia with the activities in Nepal receiving the lion’s share. The cooperation takes place through platform, e.g. through a youth platform in Nepal and a women’s platform in Tanzania and Zambia covering most political parties. In Tunisia Demo’s partner is the Tunisian School of Politics that carries out training across party lines. Denmark - DIPDThe Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy was established in 2010 and involves all parties in the Danish Parliament, Folketinget, by establishing direct cooperation between Danish and foreign politicians. This takes place partly on platforms across party lines, including think tanks and NGO’s (including centres for multi-party democracy initiated by NIMD) , partly in direct party-to-party activities. Half of the institute’s funds are to be used on these latter sister party type of activities. The party-to-party activities are carried out by the parties, assisted by DIPD. Parties receive funds according to their size. This creates some problems for smaller parties since some of the costs of a project are more or less the same irrespective of the size of the project. Therefore, a fixed basic sum equal for all parties has been proposed in order to enable equal competition for project funds. The parties often have a good grasp of the situation in the countries they operate, but DIPD spends much time on assisting parties in their project management, reporting and also the contents, eg. making sure trainings are professional. DIPD arranges joint meetings for all parties on a regular basis.The DIPD’s Strategy (DIPD 2011) problematizes the concept of ‘sister party’ referring to experiences from the Balkans and eastern Europe where it has been difficult to find matching parties following ideological conflict lines. Parties have chosen partners among parties in countries where Denmark provides developmental aid. The MFA wishes some concentration of projects in a limited number of countries. The final decision is made by DIPD’s Board on recommendation from the secretariat. The second pillar of DIPD’s activities aims at supporting the development of multiparty systems. The multi-party activities are carried out directly by DIPD. This may include capacity support in particular areas for all parties, dialogue between parties concerning guidelines for party behaviour during an election, discussions between parties about constitutional amendments that concern political parties, cooperation on specific legislation in parliament, etc.The Board of Directors is comprised of representatives from the Danish political parties supplemented by persons designated by various relevant environments in Danish society. DIPD has projects in 14 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. In 2013 DIPD had a total of 2 project coordinators, senior adviser, director, administrator, accountant, 2 students, and some possibilities to hire consultants short term. DIPD got a 75 million DKK grant for its first three years of activity. The sister party projects received around 2 million DKK each, whereas the multiparty project varied between around 0.5 and 4.5 million DKK. Not all funds have been used, but it is expected that they will in the current programme period as parties have gained experience and also continue cooperating with the same parties as before. Table STYLEREF 1 \s \* MERGEFORMAT 3. SEQ Tabell\* Arabic\s 1 \* MERGEFORMAT 2Size and forms of democracy support via political parties, five donor countriesCountry/institution *Party-to-partyMulti-party/systemTotal, 2013 **The Netherlands / NIMD-82.182.1Sweden / various ‘PAOs’50.221.571.7Denmark / DIPD13.514.027.5Finland / Demo- 8.2 8.2Norway 4.7 1.9 *** 6.6* Money allocated/disbursed in 2013. ** All amounts converted to NOK, based on the exchange rates on September 1, 2014. *** The projects of Krf/KrfU in Kenya and of Senterpartiet in Tanzania. International experiences relevant for NorwayInternationally, democracy support through political parties is an institutionalization of the insight that politics – defined as the dynamics of contestation and cooperation among social actors with differing interests and power – forms part of development. At the same time, all the major efforts of democracy support have so far had difficulties in producing evidence of lasting and positive effects. The various democracy support providers in various countries need to cooperate - and compete – to become more effective. A main theme in the international debate is the relationship between party-to-party and multi-party projects. The latter tend to address inter-party relations and projects to reform the political party and electoral systems. They seem to represent adequate approaches to very new democracies. USA and Netherland have fronted the multi-party approach. Germany and Sweden have been the main proponents of party-to-party schemes which one could argue fit better to societies with clearer signs of ideological and social differentiation. Denmark’s DIPD is an interesting newcomer in the field, trying to equally emphasize party-to-party and multi-party projects. An assumption for this balanced approach is that actors (political parties) and political systems need to be developed in conjunction.The Norwegian arrangement should draw on the experiences from these multiple approaches. For instance, the Olof Palme International Centre has developed an interesting categorization of projects: (i) projects for parties in “EU’s waiting room” (e.g. SDP in BiH, DS in Serbia); (ii) former liberation movements (e.g. Akbayan, ANC, MPLA, Fatah); (iii) new parties in authoritarian and post-authoritarian countries (DPNS/Burma, UDPS/RD Congo, Ettakatol/Tunisia). This categorization allows parties to build up competence on types of countries and situations. As table 3.2 shows, Norway stands out with an extremely low budget dedicated to democracy support via political parties. Norway also stands out as being the only country without an intermediary structure between the political parties and the funding government authority in its democracy support arrangement. There are good reasons for establishing this type of intermediary structures in the shape of a competence centre or similar. The need for democracy support to be above suspicions of being direct geo-political instruments of any given government is one obvious reason. The needs for increased professionalization of complex and knowledge-intensive undertakings is another.Other forms of Norwegian democracy supportThe Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in particular through the embassies, provide democracy support to political parties and in other forms (including multi-party projects). The Norwegian Peace Corp, Fredskorpset, funds and supervises exchange of people between organizations in Norway and the Global South. Some of the youth organizations of political parties take part in this program. The National Council for Youth Organizations, LNU, operates an extensive international cooperation program involving youth organizations of political parties. Norad’s Civil Society Department handles a vast program offering generous support to Norwegian developmental NGOs. Some of the major NGOs, such as Norsk Folkehjelp (Norwegian People’s Aid) and Kirkens N?dhjelp (Norwegian Church Aid), prioritize support to civil society organizations struggling for democracy or democratic reforms. The Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights includes two special advisers working on democracy promotion, and consider hiring one more. The center is involved in among others Nepal, Myanmar, Kenya. It has a project in Somalia on aspiring parties. The Oslo Center cooperates closely with NIMD and NDI. It works with parties but also on system level, e.g. electoral law etc. All the mentioned entities possess significant resources and experiences with relevance for democracy support via political parties. There are already many indirect or informal connections between these entities and some of the political parties. In the future, there should be more systematic and transparent contact, and exchange of experiences and services, between all the Norwegian actors involved in democracy support abroad. Three scenarios for the future arrangementIn this subchapter we will proceed to present three possible scenarios for future Norwegian democracy support to political parties. The discussion will draw on this report’s assessment of the current arrangement as well as the overview of other countries’ schemes. The pros and cons of each of the scenarios will be discussed. The three scenarios to be discussed are: :Discontinuation ContinuationRedesign DiscontinuationThis review found that although the parties can refer to positive project results these are far from cost efficient. Seemingly a paradox, one of the reasons for this is the fact that the arrangement is very small. The basic costs establishing and running one small project is relatively big as compared to the basic costs for running more and bigger projects. This goes both for the parties involved and for Norad. Moreover, the small size of the arrangement and the large number of actors make the results small-scale and scattered. Within the current scheme there is large variation between the projects regarding their harmonisation with other donor activities in the field of democracy support. Therefore, the wider repercussions of project results are not always as clear as they could have been. Moreover, many projects proposals fail to pass Norad’s examination and subsequently every year a significant portion of the total grant remains unused. This goes to show that the Norwegian parties’ capacities do not even suffice to claim all the arrangement’s available funds for projects. The current model which is based on funding the parties without the “filter” of a competence centre or the like, therefore, is sub-optimal. Many parties involved in the scheme would like to continue working together. In some cases closing down the scheme would make this difficult. Nonetheless, by and large the cooperation can be discontinued without major harm, among others because it often take place in aid-intensive regions and other funding partners will easily be found by the Norwegian parties’ partners. The Norwegian parties will be able to find other sources to fund their professional inter-face with parties world-wide. Norway does not necessarily need to be present in the field of democracy support through parties internationally. As compared to e.g. Swedish, Danish or Dutch democracy support the Norwegian contribution is small. Democracy support through parties, therefore, will remain almost unchanged as an international field of activity even after a Norwegian withdrawal. On the negative side, discontinuing the scheme means that contacts between Norwegian parties and homologues in other countries will suffer. Contacts, relationships and possibly also competence that have been built up over years stand at risk to be lost, or at least weakened. These are contacts based on trust, and they take time to build up. They are probably the scheme’s most important positive side-effects. Also, closing down the scheme also means removing one important reminder to Norad about the importance of politics in addition to technology and civil society. It will shut down a channel for discussing sensitive issues such as concentration and centralization of power, authoritarian tendencies and corruption with important political players in the partner countries. To sum up, the negative consequences of closing down the scheme for democracy support through parties will be insignificant and it will free resources for more cost-efficient aid activities. However, it also implies closing down a scheme that, after thorough revision and increased funding, could have become a tool for democracy promotion in the East and South. ContinuationAlthough being a bit on the side of the parties’ core activities as well as Norad’s main field of work the involved actors have been able to develop routines for communication about planning and reporting that are conducive to project results. Most of the parties have a core of enthusiasts and professionals in the HQ as well as among the membership that contribute to “added value” beyond what is funded through Norad. Several parties use the democracy support for the additional gain of improving the membership’s insights in international issues as well as strengthening the party’s position internationally. These side-effects could be achieved through other types of activities as well but the democracy support offer good opportunities. Continuing the scheme means that contacts, relationships and competence that the parties have built up over years will be maintained. Norad’s competence in proposal assessment, monitoring and evaluation in this specific area will also be maintained. Norad might gain from deepening its insights in national politics in countries of the Global South. The scheme’s annual budget is a microscopic item in Norad’s overall budget which means very little is at stake if it is continued. On the other hand, even if the scheme is small in budget terms, it is time-consuming to the extent of being cost-inefficient. This goes for Norad but also some parties mention that the current scheme offers too small funds for them to afford it. Moreover, other countries are much more deeply involved in democracy support through parties and the Norwegian contribution stand at risk of being redundant. To sum up, apart from burdening Norad and parties with follow-up work far exceeding the actual size of the scheme, a continuation have few negative effects and could be used for a gradual revision. This review has pointed at some weakness that could be remedied gradually within the scope of the current scheme. On the other hand, there is reason to question the rationality of engaging oneself on such a small scale in a field where other, like-minded countries already contribute much more significantly. RedesignA redesigned arrangement is an option to obtain a specific economy of scale, cost efficiency and a more knowledge-based and professional project management. To achieve this, a scaling up and more substantial funding for the Norwegian parties are needed. Democracy support to parties is being made within a variety of schemes. The Norwegian model with a direct relation between the funding source and the parties is unique and encumbered with some difficulties. If Norway is going to continue democracy promotion through parties, a different up model should be considered in which a body external to both Norad and the parties – a resource centre - is established. This centre would be assigned the task on the basis of a tender and made responsible for annual grants for which it would have to report to Norad. This centre – and no longer Norad – will be the direct counterpart for the parties. Our review showed that the Norwegian parties have increased their planning and analytical capacity required to ‘do no harm’. However, they need to increase this capacity further in order to operate on a larger scale; in particular they lack critical understanding of the specific country contexts. They also need to develop an adequate results-based management system. Moreover, the multi-party approaches, although existing within the current scheme, stand at risk of losing out. We suggest a combination of party-to-party and multi-party projects and view them as complementary forms of democracy support. The main arguments for further party-to-party cooperation are:There is energy and added value, free-of-charge, from drawing on partisanship (support likeminded people in other countries)For some parties there is also energy and added value from wanting to be a relevant member of the party International (the party’s international standing)Side-effects: Long lasting contacts and trust may emerge from party-to-party cooperation, which may be of use for the Norwegian diplomacy (channels etc) Probably, this type of cooperation is most efficient for the purpose of strengthening intra-party dialogue and democracy; organizational strengtheningThe main arguments for more multi-party projects are:Some parties in the East and South may fall outside the scheme because they are not affiliated with an international party family (this may be more often the case than not for ‘problematic’ parties)Many countries are in need of some external organizer of communication across party lines. This need is not only due to “poor political culture” but may be the result of highly legitimate lack of mutual trust, due to e.g. civil war atrocities, oppression during recent dictatorship or other. Danger of amateurishness can be reduced by pooling more resources into large scale multi-party projects.To carry out both party-to-party cooperation and multi-party projects well, the Norwegian parties need a competence centre which can pro-actively enable them to carry out adequate project planning, monitoring and reporting. The centre is also needed to ensure the access to relevant country expertise.One may think of various ways of organizing the resource centre: One example is The Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) established by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008 to “integrate knowledge, experience, and critical reflection into and thereby strengthen peacebuilding policy and practice”. It is publicly funded but organized as a private foundation. It would resemble the Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support with one significant difference: its board should not consist of representatives of the political parties. However, the most flexible and cost-efficient way of setting up a democracy support competence centre would probably be to situate it in an existing institution. To ensure easy communication this organisation should be based in Norway, but also assign foreign and international organisations with the task might be considered. We see two alternative ways of modelling the relationship between the resource centre and Norad: Norad continues to be the responsible administrative entity, but the projects are supervised and quality assured by a resource centre. The resource centre administrates the arrangement. Professional integrity and independence are to be ensured by a clear division of labour between the persons providing advisory services to the parties and the person(s) with responsibility for the decisions (approval/disapproval of projects proposals, progress and final reports). We think the latter alternative could mean a more effective and less time-consuming treatment of proposals and reports, and henceforth more appropriate for the parties. Once or twice a year the centre could open a window for the parties to present project ideas or draft proposals for professional comments and feed-back. The centre would have to possess satisfactory capacity to assess project proposals and have access to critical knowledge about the respective countries. This could be done by drawing extensively on an international network. At the same time, a challenge for this centre will be to display the authority, integrity and professional independence necessary to reject any project proposal or report in the same way as Norad has been able to do. Therefore, option (i) with Norad continuing to be the funding body and the responsible administrative entity can be chosen for the near future, at least for a period needed to build up and consolidate the resource centre. The resource centre could be surrounded by a council of party secretaries (secretaries-general). However, this council should only have an advisory role and no authority to instruct the resource centre or make allocative decisions. There are several advantages from scaling-up the scheme and introducing a competence centre. Not only will contacts and relationships that the parties have built up be further developed, also the unique competence possessed by the parties can be tapped on a larger scale. This arrangement can provide complementary essentials, and useful synergies, to other democracy support activities funded by Norway. A scaled up arrangement, even more embedded within the Norwegian party organizations, may increase the understanding for and interest in international democracy development in Norway. One of the tasks of a future competence centre will be to harmonise the Norwegian projects with policy processes and other donor activities in the recipient countries. This will have to be done in close cooperation with institutions such as NIMD’s dialogue centres, DIPD, Demo and NDI. Also cross-party coordination with the Swedish PAO’s and German Stiftungen may be worth trying out. The main counter-argument against scaling up and redesigning the scheme are the following:Even with more funding, the Norwegian parties may not necessarily be professional enough for such a knowledge-intensive undertaking in what for them is terra incognita. This is an insight that goes not only for parties but for many other Norwegian organizations getting funds to run projects abroad.Other countries have schemes that already are based on substantial funding and competence centres, and they may satisfy the demand that exist for this type of activities. Moreover, Norwegian parties could potentially get funding to link up with other countries’ schemes. In that case, an obvious solution would be to link Norwegian parties up to their Swedish sister parties’ PAO’s or enter into a close cooperation with Danish DPID. Against the latter counter-argument one may hold that Norway, on celebrating 200 years of its democratic constitution and more than 60 years of experience from international development cooperation, should be able to deliver independent and high-quality democracy support to friendly party organizations around the world. Conclusions and recommendationsThe projectsThe Norwegian parties involved in democracy support concentrate on project activities where they have skilled personnel to draw on, e.g. training in work with mass media, presentation techniques, study circles, training-of-trainers and the like. The Norwegian parties and projects reviewed show an adequate concern that the partners come out with increased skills and knowledge. However, the outcomes in terms of increased competence within the organization as a result of these activities is seldom well reported.Most of the projects are party-to-party, although Senterpartiet, KrF, and KrFU have projects with multi-party counterparts. In the latter cases the Norwegian parties draw on local offices of international institutions for democracy promotion. All project proposals underwent a thorough scrutiny by Norad’s civil society department. The overwhelming majority of project proposals received very critical remarks for poor risk analysis, superficial insight in the political surrounding of the partner parties, lack of structured thinking on relations between project input, mechanisms and results. Nonetheless, most proposals were approved after some amendments. By and large, the democracy support scheme post-2011 is more professional than it used to being the former model. Much of this is because project proposals now have to be assessed and approved by Norad. The learning in the Norwegian parties, however, has not been systematic e.g. through capacity-building workshops or regular meetings between project leaders or secretary-generals. Many projects target strategic issues relevant for democratization. H?yre’s project in Bosnia for instance aims to bring together activists from ideologically like-minded parties in each of the three ethnic groups. Structuring politics in Bosnia according to values and policies instead of ‘ethnified clientelism’ would mean a leap forward for the country. KrF targets the party secretaries to strengthen the party organizations in Kenya that often are overrun by members of the national assembly, and they show a sister party in an authoritarian post-Soviet country how KrF deals with internal controversies. The project between SV and FMLN in El Salvador has, among others, resulted in a computerized membership register. Keeping track with who is a member and who is not is a prerequisite for internal party democracy. Arbeiderpartiet addressed the issue of enabling women participation in Egyptian politics. Arbeiderpartiet and AUF encourage contact between like-minded party organizations across the borders in the Middle East. Senterpartiet builds democratic participation from below through study circles in Tanzania.Does Norwegian democracy support via political parties contribute to “democratic and well-functioning party organizations in developing countries” in an effective manner? The answer to that key question is “yes”, technically or in terms of outcomes; “not yet” but “we don’t know”, in terms of political impacts. Regarding what we suggest to call technical effectiveness, all the projects looked at have produced results. Regarding social (political) effectiveness our view is: On the one hand, the outcomes address issues that are relevant for the achievement of the overall goals of well-functioning and democratic party organizations. That supports the argument that likely effects/impacts are produced. On the other hand, the outcomes do not always address the counter-vailing factors. Many projects within the scheme emphasize the inclusion of young people and women in party work. However, if the women and young people belong to the families, clans or clientele of the party leaders, training them does not automatically lead to more democracy. This is a case for critical knowledge about the project country in general, but also the political culture, practices and power relations surrounding and penetrating the partner organization(s). Although parties target strategic issues, they do not necessarily operate with a sufficient Theory-of-Change that explains how the project activities will lead to changed behavior or decisions and how these changes will lead to more democracy. Most of all the projects suffer from being small and based on workshops or visits twice a year. Where the projects are clearly linked up with ongoing processes in the parties in the East and South some of the problems of scale are remedied. By and large the projects have been conducive to internationalize the outlook of those party members and staff in the Norwegian parties that have been directly involved. Most likely, parties that take actively part in international party families – Internationals or the like – have been able to make themselves somewhat more relevant. In general, the projects – although on a very small scale – have contributed to pave the way for potentially important channels for Norwegian foreign policy. The arrangementThe present arrangement as compared to the previous one (NDS) is applying stricter project management and more structured reporting. This means that the democracy support has been able to benefit from Norad’s competence in this field and focus on goal achievement and results. Also the selection of projects to be funded benefits from being done by a neutral agency which applies quality criteria. As this review shows the projects have been able to reach some concrete results. The question is whether this has been done in an efficient way. Our answer is probably not. Much organizational efforts have been made to carry out projects for a relatively small funding. The administrative costs especially for Norad, but also for the Norwegian parties, are disproportionally high. The current arrangement has managed to produce important and relevant outcomes, and it is likely that certain impacts are achieved within reasonable time if the project activities are followed up as intended. However, it remains uncertain to what extent the impacts can match the ambitions. Therefore we suggest that the arrangement is scaled up in order to achieve a certain economy of scale, higher cost efficiency and not least a higher degree of professional and expert-based inputs. Based on international experiences this can best be done by a) providing a larger volume and higher grants to the arrangement, and b) establishing an independent resource centre for the democracy support arrangement. Norad copes very well with the technical quality control but finds the substance field of democracy promotion not to coincide with its own priorities. The Norwegian parties and Norad alike have expressed that there is a big need among the parties for access to advisory resources. Although such resources are available internationally, it is more appropriate for the Norwegian parties that that the resources are located at a centre in Norway. It is important that that the suggested scaling-up, with a higher degree of professional and expert-based inputs, come in addition to what has been a very positive aspect of the democracy support arrangement until now, namely the voluntary efforts and mobilization of ordinary party members on the Norwegian side.The current arrangement is characterized by many small projects dispersed among many countries. The “entrance costs” in each of them are relatively high. In some cases these costs have paid off, like in the case of SV in Salvador, where there has been solidarity work for decades and therefore substantial knowledge to build the project upon. Nonetheless, another challenge is the knowledge-intensiveness of democracy support through political parties. The parties would gain from having someone to talk with on their projects. Senterpartiet, KrF and KrFU do the right thing when working closely, in their selected countries, with international democracy promoting institutions. External expertise should be invited, and projects should be clustered geographically and thematically. An example of an interesting thematic area to deal with is when a ruling party in a dictatorship democratizes as a result of a shift of regime. Also, including institutions with a permanent presence in the country, like NIMD or NDI, may compensate for lack of the project’s specific weight, lack of knowledge of the country contexts and limited skills in democracy development. Contact and cooperation with these international institutions can be combined with more systematic emphasis on multi-party projects in complementarity to party-to-party projects. RecommendationsThere is a broad agreement between Norwegian parties (i) to commit themselves to democracy support and (ii) to cooperate better to improve the quality of the assistance to political parties.The right alternative responding to this demand is: redesign and scaling up of the arrangement for democracy support via political parties. The redesign and scaling up rests on three pillars:Norad An independent resource centreAn advisory council. Recommendation 1: Norad and the political parties should agree on a revised formulation of the purpose of the arrangement. The required focus on “party organizations” is too narrow. In addition, the current reference to “ODA-approved countries on the OECD-DAC list” should be deleted from the Guidelines, so that countries in post-Soviet countries and in Europe’s neighborhood will not be excluded. Linking the overall objective on the parties’ own motivation to be players on the international scene – e.g. within their own established international networks (e.g. ‘Internationals’) or within the broad solidarity movement for Africa or Latin America – is worth considering.Recommendation 2: Democracy support is a knowledge-intensive activity. A resource centre is needed to provide a forum for contact and exchange of experiences between actors involved in Norwegian democracy support, and to oversee capacity building in results-based management among the Norwegian project leaders. The Norwegian parties and Norad alike have expressed that there is a big need among the parties for access to such advisory resources. The centre should be external to the parties. The centre should also offer updated information of the state-of-the art in the area of democracy support, internationally and nationally, to the public and to the political parties. It should also offer particular advice and supervision to bilateral partnerships of political parties, capable of securing professionalism in project and programme management according to Norad’s criteria, e.g. the focus on results. The resource centre could be localized within an existing Norwegian institution, in the form of a tendered public service commissioned by Norad. Recommendation 3: Norad should continue to be the funding body to which the recipient political parties are held accountable, as long as Norad and the political parties find this arrangement.to be adequate The process started by Norad and the parties to develop an adequate results-based management model has to continue. Certain minimum standards regarding planning, monitoring and results reporting could be negotiated for regarding the party-to-party projects. When it comes to multi-party projects, international standards are more developed and need to be attended. Recommendation 4: An advisory council should be established to interact with the resource centre. The council could consist of the secretaries-general and/or relevant persons with insight in the field of democracy cooperation, appointed by the secretaries-general. Each party could have two representatives in the council. The council should elaborate an annual updated list of recommended main partner countries and advise on joint multi-party projects. Also, the advisory council should make an annual plan for competence building among the Norwegian political parties. The resource centre should be responsible for preparing and implementing this plan. Supportive measures:Recommendation 5: The total annual amount allocated to the arrangement should be increased substantially to benefit from a certain economy of scale. It is not realistic to reach Sweden’s level of allocations to democracy support via political parties, but Denmark’s level should be aimed at. The increase should be gradual and contingent upon increased capacities in the parties involved. There could be four grants: (i)basic grant equally distributed to all political parties represented in Stortinget to uphold their planning and learning capacity; (ii)grants to single parties based on project applications; for one year pre-projects and four-year ordinary project; (iii) grants earmarked for multiparty projects; one year pre-projects and four-year ordinary project; (iv) a grant for the running of the resource centre. Recommendation 6: A more flexible and differentiated scope of demands should be put on these different types of grants: (i) basic grants requiring accounts and annual activity reports only; (ii) party-to-party project grants also requiring bi-annual results report following a simplified log frame; (iii) multi-party projects requiring bi-annual results report following a more elaborated log frame. Recommendation 7: A future scheme for democracy support through parties must strengthen the ‘critical knowledge’ about the country contexts of the projects. A more thorough ‘country risk assessment’ that consults available written sources about the country, should be required from the applicants and updated with the annual progress reports.Recommendation 8: Another idea for restructuring the democracy support is to draw on the experiences from the Olof Palme International Centre. It operates with three ?clusters? of projects: (i) projects for parties in “EU’s waiting room”; (ii) former liberation movements); (iii) new parties in authoritarian and post-authoritarian countries This categorization allows parties to build up competence on types of countries and situations. A fourth category could be parties that used to be constituent parties of authoritarian regimes but later have entered into a process of democratization. H?yre’s former cooperation with Golkar in Indonesia is an example. Recommendation 9: There is a need for systematic competence building among the Norwegian political parties regarding democracy support. The suggested resource centre should organize annual training courses e.g. in PMR (planning-monitoring-reporting of outcomes/results) in conjunction with Norad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or more specialized training institutions. The resource centre should also organize meetings for the political parties in order to exchange and share experiences from their work in specific thematic or geographical areas. Relevant resource persons in developmental NGO, Norad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and could be invited to this forum. Moreover, the resource centre should organize or sponsor meetings or seminars about the situation in countries of high relevance for the democracy support program. The participation by the Norwegian political parties in these activities should be voluntary. Recommendation 10:In order to concentrate efforts, projects should be concentrated on a limited number of countries. To reduce the risk that Norway is accused of political bias in a foreign country, the assistance could include several parties, either in party-to-party or multi-party projects. A list of countries recommended for a four-year period should contain a limited number of countries. While the Norwegian political parties must remain free to select the partners and countries they wish, multi-party projects should be chosen exclusively from this list. Recommendation 11: Multi-party projects could be planned, implemented and monitored with the assistance of foreign institutes such as NIMD (Netherland) and DIPD (Denmark). These latter institutions, with their more permanent presence in the partner countries, could also be contracted to monitor and assist in party-to-party projects. Still, a Norwegian political party should be the ‘owner’ (grant recipient and manager) of the project. The other Norwegian parties should be invited to partake in a multi-party project.Recommendation 12: The Norwegian parties should be encouraged to design partnerships with different funding arrangements – e.g. Norad’s support to information activities and Fredskorpset’s program for exchange of organization staff, in addition to the democracy support scheme. This would create positive synergiesRecommendation 13: In some cases the projects have been halted due to personnel shift in the partner’s organization. Therefore, there is a need to embed the projects more deeply in the party organizations. This can be achieved through the mandatory involvement of both the secretary-general and international secretary of the partner organization in the project planning process. References and documents consultedBartolini, Stefano and Peter Mair (2001): Challenges to Contemporary Political Parties in: Political Parties and Democracy, Diamond, Larry and Richard Gunther, Baltimore: John Hopkins University PressCarothers, Thomas (2006): Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies. CarnegieCarothers, Thomas and Diane de Gramont (2013): Development Aid Confronts Politics: The Almost Revolution- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace DIPD (2011): Strategy 2011-2013 – Political Parties In a Democratic Culture. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy.DPID (2013): Annual report 2013. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy, Henningsen, E. & Braathen, E. (2009): “Norwegian party assistance in Tanzania”. Report no.19. Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research.Hobson, Christopher & Milja Kurki (eds) (2012): The Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion. RoutledgeKemp, Brechtje with Sam van der Staak, Bjarte T?r? and Augustine Magolowongo (2013): Policial Dialogue – A facilitaror’s Guide. IDEA/NIMD/Oslo CentreNIMD (2012): Multi Annual Plan - 2012-2015. Hague: Netherlands Institute for Multi-party Democracy.NIMD (2014): Annual Report 2013. Hague: Netherlands Institute for Multi-party Democracy.Norad Report (2010). Evaluation of the Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support 2002-2009. Authors: Henningsen, Braathen, Holm-Hansen and Jordhus-Lier (NIBR). Report 1/2010 – Norad Evaluation Department Norad (2011). Regelverk for demokratist?tte gjennom politiske partier. Norad (2014). Konkurransegrunnlag for anskaffelse av konsulenttjenester for gjennomgang av demokratist?tte gjennom politiske partier. Saksnr. 1400623.OECD/DAC (2002): Glossary of key terms in evaluations and result-based managementRegeringen (i Sverige)(2010): Strategi f?r s?rskilt demokratist?d genom svenska partianknutna organisationer 2011-2015. StockholmStortinget (2013): Innstilling til Stortinget fr? utenriks- og forsvarskomitéen: Innst. 7 S (2013-2014). ?sterud, ?yvind (1991): Statsvitenskap – innf?ring i politisk analyse. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Interview guidePART I: ABOUT THE PROJECT(S) Name of organization/party:Project(s):Name(s) of interviewed person(s): A. BackgroundHow was the project initiated?Your experience/knowledge of (the political situation in) the cooperating country? What analysis was made prior to project application and what were the reflections made?Criteria/reasons for choice of project partner (“among the larger and more representative parties in the country”?) B. Programme theory (“How you expect the activities to contribute towards the project’s objectives”)Which specific needs/situation (political or organizational) does the project address?What are the project goals?Goals to be realized through project activities on the ground. (e.g. training) Did you plan, or even carry out, a continuous chain of possible follow-up activities?What are the supposed immediate effects of the project activities (e.g. New competence/skills and new ways of doing things in the partner organization; better functioning and more democratic the partner organizations? How do the activities bring about changes in political situation/promotion of democracy? What is the potential contribution of Norwegian political parties to the promotion of democracy in the cooperating country (the value added)C. Project designRole of South/East partner in the design of the project?How did Norad or other outside advisors (external experts) contribute to the design of the project?Did you ever consider multiparty projects? Did you ever consider to experiment with alternatives to the typical “seminar/ToT” design?Was there specific groups of the partner organization, or specific organizational levels, targeted? Did the project benefit from previous experiences of your own or of other parties/ party/democracy assistance providers ? “The scope of the project is small but the objectives are very ambitious”: To what extent is that a problem?Was your approach to be ‘an educator’, ‘a role model’ or just a ‘sponsor’? Did you emphasise to be ‘ideological’ or ‘ideologically neutral’?D. Project operationThe project responsible in the party, employed, voluntary? What links to and communication with political leaders of the party? How well did you manage to embed the project broadly in the Recipient Norwegian Party?What is the contribution from the Norwegian party organization in concrete terms, (and consequently the value added?)The partner involved at what organizational level? How well did you manage to embed the project broadly in the partner organization? How well did you communicate on a day-to-day basis with the partner organization, and was there a stable relationship? Gender profileSupport from Norad and the Norwegian embassy in the partner country/Norad’s management of the programme?Cooperation with other party/democracy assistance providers?Did you operate an adequate conceptual framework for results reporting? (Baseline, logical framework/indicators etc.) Did you operate an adequate framework for the economic management of the project? How cost efficient has the project been? E. Documented resultsWere they as anticipated?Did the project activities build lasting competence/skills and new ways of doing things in the partner organization? Did the project activities improve the functioning and democratic character of the partner organization? Were there unexpected results – positive or negative?How sustainable do you think the positive results (changes made in the partner organization) are going to be?F. LearningDid you have capacity to foresee and manage risks and non-intended effects of the project? Have you made any revisions of the project as a result of unexpected results or developments?If the project was terminated – why so?What are the main achievements of the project?What were the main obstacles?Routines of evaluationWhat are the main lessons? If you were to start it up today, what would you do differently?PART II: ABOUT THE DEMOCRACY SUPPORT (DS) ARRANGEMENT Name of organization/party:Project(s):Name(s) of interviewed person(s):G. GeneralWhat is your organization’s general attitude to party assistance in other countries– skeptical or positive? If changes of attitudes over time, please specify. What has been your organization’s attitude to DS? Sceptic or highly positive? If changes of attitudes over time, please specify. H. Interaction with Norad Satisfied with the influence of the parties on the Guidelines (‘Regelverk’) and the design of the DS arrangement? Do you have examples of applications rejected/disapproved? Satisfied with Norad’s treatment and guidance to improve the applications? Satisfied with Norad’s execution of the ‘Regelverk’ and the whole DS arrangement?? - I. Involvement of (political party) in DS At what level of organization involved in DS?Capacity and capability for international party assistanceInterest of party leadershipEffect on party membershipJ. Competence buildingExchange of experience between projects/political parties?Routines of evaluation?Use of ‘external’ experts?Do you have strategy plans, “long term plans for party assistance”; do you think they are relevant?K. Project policyChoice of countries/regionsChoice of bilateral/multilateral projectsScale of projectsChoice of project activitiesL. Financial managementPolicy of budgetary spending in projectsTransparency of economic managementExternal auditingABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE DEMOCRACY SUPPORTM.The arrangement:How did the current arrangement (Regelverk etc) come into being? Who led this process?Were the 2010 evaluation recommendations about “ a new public independent agency” considered? Were the parties consulted about the new arrangement/regelverk etc? What have been the main differences between the old NDS regime and the new Norad/DS regime? What has been improved, and what not (or been worse), in the new regime compared with the NDS regime?What is your overall assessment: should the DSbe discontinued/abolished?be continued as it is?be continued if certain changes are made? If so:Should there be any change of the stated means/ends of DS (promoting “well functioning and democratic party organizations in developing countries” by means of “capacity building and long term democratic organization building”? Should there be any change of the ‘Guidelines’ or in way DS is administered /governed (e.g. by Norad)? How should a future scheme of Norwegian party assistance be organised?Is there any particular arrangement in other donor countries the Norwegian DS should learn from? N. Norad: Any regular consultations with the parties? “Fler?rige avtaler basert p? partienes fler?rige planer for bistandsvirskomheten? (Guidelines pkt.6). Do you require these plans? O. Norad: The (dis-) approval of projectsMain instruments: applications, demands for addendums. Internal assessments=>BD (Decision Document)Assessments: : from norad’s advisors, from the embassies. Fixed forms!? Please send to us. Are the assessments good enough? Should you also be able to draw on external independent expertise? Applications that were rejected: how many? Which ones?Main reasons: lack of understanding of local context? Other reasons? (Cfr: Norad 2011, Regelverk. “Vurderingskriterier i behandling av s?knaden, pkt. 4 Tildelingskriterier). Did Norad manage to initiate a learning & change process in the applicant organization when their applications were demanded revised? When rejected? How?P. Projects: The follow up/monitoringHow well have you been able to monitor the projects? (Instruments: Annual reports, annual plans.)Any projects where misbehavior have been discovered? (Pkt 6 regelverk). List of interviewsVigdis Halvorsen (assistant director), Sigurd Kihl (adviser) and Lillian Prestegard (adviser), Civil society department, Norad.Petter Skj?veland (senior adviser), Department for economic development, gender and governance, Norad.Geir L?kken (assistant director), Section for human rights and democracy, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Raymond Johansen (party secretary), the Norwegian Labour Party / Arbeiderpartiet. Mari Aaby West (international adviser), Arbeiderpartiet.Gina Lund (project leader, Egypt), Arbeiderpartiet.Hussein Gohar (international secretary), ESDP (Arbeiderpartiet’s partner in Egypt) (telephone).Ann Itto (deputy secretary-general), SPLM (Arbeiderpartiet’s partner in South Sudan) (telephone)?smund Aukrust (deputy leader) and Ane Tosterud Holte (international secretary), the Workers’ Youth League / AUF.Raed Bou Hamdan (international secretary), Progressive Youth Organization (AUF’s partner in Libanon) (telephone)Raed Debiy (national board member and international leader), Fateh Youth Movement (AUF’s partner in Palestine) (telephone) Lars Arne Ryssdal (secretary-general) and Karsten Karls?en (assistant to the secretary-general), Conservative Party / H?yre.Rune Aale-Hansen (project leader), H?yre. Knut H. Jahr (secretary-general) and Andreas Haug L?land (international secretary), Christian People’s Party / KrF.Olga A. and Olga B., (KrF’s partner in post-Soviet state).Mathea Fjukstad Hansen (secretary-general) and Line Nordhaug (international secretary), Christian People’s Party Youth / KrFU.Ivan A., (KrFU’s partner organization II in post-Soviet state).Amer Obradovi?, New Initiative centre, Sarajevo (H?yre’s partner in Bosnia-Herzegovina) (email) Viktorya A., (KrFU’s partner organization II in post-Soviet state).Ronald Ojwang, NDI/ National Democratic Institute (KrF and KrFU's partner in Kenya).?Lisa MacLean, NDI/National Democratic Institute (Nairobi, Kenya) (skype).Knut M.Olsen (secretary-general), the Centre Party / Senterpartiet. Inger Bigum (project leader) and Kristin Madsen (secretary-general), the Centre Party Study Association / Senterpartiet.Daniel Loya (director), Tanzanian Centre for Democracy (Senterpartiet’s main partner in Tanzania) (telephone).Ms J. Lucy (field officer in Mtwara district), Tanzanian Centre for Democracy) (telephone).Edwin Milinga (election officer), CCM (one of Senterpartiet’s partners in Tanzania) (telephone).Victor Kimesera (assistant secretary-general), CHADEMA (one of Senterpartiet’s partners in Tanzania) (telephone).Silje Schei Tveitdal, (party secretary), Socialist Left Party /SVThomas Johansen (project leader), SV.Melissa Márquez, FMLN (SV’s partner in El Salvador)(skype).Trond Enger (secretary-general), Liberal Party / Venstre.Bj?rn F?rde, director, DPIDBjarte T?r?, senior adviser, The Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. ................
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